Behavior & Training : House Visitors (& Halloween)

(Molly in her Halloween 'costume')

  

One of the reactivity issues Molly is having most problems overcoming is visitors to 'her' house.  When the doorbell rings, she immediately starts barking, which escalates to howling when the visitor enters the house or the door opens and she can see them.  If she is fed lots of treats and consoled, and the visitor sits down or otherwise makes themselves non-threatening, she usually manages to calm down a bit.  However, as soon as they move, it starts all over again.  Lately, she has either gotten worse, or braver, and has started charging and 'muzzle punching' (bopping the visitor with her nose, mouth closed).

Understandably, visitors aren't crazy about this behavior.  It's also kind of self-escalating since many visitors will remove themselves pretty quickly anyway (delivery people, service repairmen, etc).  And if they weren't already motivated to move on, the loud barking definitely encourages them.  So, the 'threat' disappears and she makes the conclusion that the barking was successful.  We also don't get visitors often enough to have a lot of chances to practice good behavior.  Which all combines to make this a difficult problem to solve.

We had a private trainer come over last weekend to help out with this problem and she gave the following suggestions that I am currently working on implementing:

• Constrain (either gate or leash) her in an area where she can see the visitor, but can't reach them.  I have a split level house, so the stairs in the middle of my house work well for this.  She has a view of the front door but is out of the main pathway through the house.  She has already learned 'go to your step'
• Save 'special' treats only for visitors, and feed during the time of the immediate threat (when the visitor first arrives).  The trainer brought along some dried chicken treats that Molly LOVES so we bought a bag which we will use only for special scary occasions.
• Let her know that someone is coming via a phrase, so there are no surprises, and she understands it's a good thing.  I'm training 'incoming' as a joke to her extreme reaction to visitors, but other possibilities are 'people' or 'look, a friend'.
• Whatever consoles her is okay, it's a scary situation and there is no need for her to be tough.  This was something I asked about, since I've heard a lot of advice that says not to pick up small dogs, to let them stand on their own, etc.  According to the trainer, when she is in that heightened emotional state, just calming her down and consoling her is the priority.

Unfortunately, all this means that Halloween is cancelled in our household this year.  I'm bummed since I have only lived in a house that gets trick-or-treaters for a few years and I really enjoy handing out candy.  But given that Halloween is going to be the equivalent of a war zone for my reactive pup, it's the right thing to do.  We'll be cuddling on the couch downstairs (not in view of the front window) watching a scary movie instead.