territorial behaviour at door - problem or just instinct?

[Dishwaterblonde]

Have a lovely 2 year old dog. She's a delight most of the time - very friendly to people she knows well, brilliant with other dogs. However, as she's got older she seems increasingly a bit reactive to people at the front door - unfortunately I think this is a result of early months spent in lockdown.

The doorbell rings and she will run to our narrow hallway. If it's someone familiar, she's nothing but happy and waggy, but if it's a stranger she might growl or bark. We are training her to sit behind us and wait but it's not always easy in a busy house, and try as we might, she can't seem to resist seeing who it is.

If a stranger actually enters, we might have a bit or barking and 'hand shy' behaviour if they try to stroke her, but usually within a couple of minutes she's made friends with them!

She is half collie and I think is just trying to protect her pack, but it stresses me out and it's not how I want to greet people into our house. DH thinks I'm being a bit ridiculous and it's just her instinct and gradually over time, she'll learn new people coming in don't post any kind of threat. Thoughts?

Sounds totally normal but also cause for some concern. I would firstly prevent the dog from accessing the door - baby gate in the hall or put her in another room while you answer the door. Secondly, I would certainly prevent unknown (to the dog) visitors from attempting to touch her on arrival. She sounds quite nervous and will be trying to gather info by sniffing. If she is shying away from hands, she doesn't want to be touched so make sure that's respected.

We have a set routine for all guests so doggy knows what to expect/do: door knocks, dog goes in living room behind a gate so he can watch guest come in safely. Guest comes into the kitchen and sits down. Once everyone is settled and calm, dog can come for a sniff and say hi. Guests are asked not to interact at all; definitely no touching because he doesn't like it (your dog may be different). If dog (or guest!) gets over excited he is separated again. Your dog sounds more confident than mine though so guests may be able to stroke her once she's had a sniff and is reassured they're friendly but go at her pace.

If she is already growling/barking, I would be very careful. Better safe than sorry!

At turning 2, she is coming up to social maturity and, for some dogs, this means guarding their turf.

In your shoes, I would teach her a solid sit-stay, and reward her for staying put while you answer the door. You'll have to build up to this (nail a sit stay in various places, both at home and elsewhere, for varying lengths of time) and then rehearse things like opening and closing the door, and letting family members in and so on, and praising and rewarding her for staying put, and then once that's established, ask for the behaviour when the doorbell goes randomly and again, praise and reward when she gets it right. It's the building it up in stages that will help her to establish the behaviour.

Just don't forget to release her once it's safe for her to move.

Thank you so much for this advice.

@TheChestertons - keeping her behind a baby gate would be ideal but the way our house is laid out makes it tricky (hallway leads to stairs down to open plan living area etc). Her 'problem' seems to be that she wants to see who is coming in - if it's someone she knows she is excited to see them, but if she doesn't know them, she's nervous - trying to sniff them but at the same time backing away when someone tries to touch her. Frustratingly, she won't move from the hallway - which is so narrow it tends to add to the chaos (she''s a big dog!)

@EdithStourton - it's an excellent method, but the issue is that, if it's just one of us in the house, it seems impossible to get her to sit and stay from such a distance (ie down a short flight of stairs) when she's so excited by the door 😖

@Dishwaterblonde don't expect that with only one of you until you have established the behaviour and solidified your sit stay. It took me ages to sort out sit stay with my younger dog, and not until I watched a video hammering home how you need to build duration, distance and distraction as different things did we actually make some real progress - it was quite quick once we got going, and the dog in question will now sit in the middle of a field and let me walk 50 yards away and wander around out there, check my phone etc, for five minutes. Once she can sit there and watch with one of you answering the door and one of you standing ready to intervene if she moves, you're almost there.

Good luck!

@EdithStourton - thank you, that's good to know. She is pretty good at sit/stay in other circumstances but the door has been a different matter entirely. Can you remember by any chance what video you watched? Thanks again.

Ah, I appreciate the layout of your house may make it difficult to have gates. Would a room divider help while you are working on this? My dog is very nervous so I do take extra precautions but I find it so much less stressful to know he's secure while everyone gets settled - I can greet people and make drinks etc without worrying what the dog is up to. Then let him in calmly when I'm ready and the initial excitement has worn off.

Kikopup on YouTube has some good videos on training stay with duration and distractions.

Can you remember by any chance what video you watched?
It was a gundog training one - I paid to do an online course.

IIRC, the main advice was, if you build one thing, backtrack on another - so if you're getting a 3 minute sit with you 30 yards away, move in much closer before you expect 5 minute sit and then build distance again, and come in close if distractions are around, and get the dog used to them with you nearby, and then build distance again.

Hi again everyone,

Came on here a few weeks ago asking for advice on our two year old’s dog aggressive behaviour at the door. We’ve been trying to get her to sit and stay at the bottom of the stairs when people arrive (rather than enter the hallway) - and whilst she can do it, it’s hard to be consistent, particularly with multiple people opening the door at different times and not always following the method, grrr.

After an annoying episode yesterday where my teenagers opened the door to an Amazon driver with the dog with them in the hallway, that resulted in the dog barking and growling at the poor guy 😖I’m wondering if it might be better to shut her in a different room entirely when people come to the door and/or enter the house?

The reason I’ve resisted this is that I thought it was better for her to see us greeting guests who come in, particularly those she hasn’t met before, as I thought she would react badly to being released from a room only to find people she doesn’t know already in the house, if you catch my drift?

i can’t work out the best way to go with this, and feel worried her territorial fear is progressing ☹️ I think she needs to learn that she doesn’t have to guard us, that we are in control of who comes into the house etc - but is closing her in another room (where she can’t see who is coming in) the answer? Thanks so much

My feeling is you need to do some more training - of those teenagers! If they aren't yet managing the sit/stay by the stairs, chances are they won't remember to put her in another room before opening the front door either, so that's not really a solution even apart from the possible downsides. Can you put a big notice on the inside of the front door to remind them maybe?

@ErrolTheDragon - ha yes teenagers could always use training! But it would be easier for them to shut the dog in the smaller living room that leads off the hallway as it’s right by the front door.

our current issue is that our main big open living space/kitchen - where everyone and the dog often are- is downstairs from the narrow hallway (sounds odd I know, but common in some London terraces). So what happens at the moment is, doorbell goes, dog wants to fly into hallway to investigate. My plan was to get the dog to sit at the bottom of these stairs whilst door is opened and wait - often with one person opening door and another giving treats - so she learns a) answering the door is our job and b) a good thing. But this is hard to pull off if she makes it into the hallway before anyone else does….

Whereas, if we put her into the living room by the hallway when people come in, it’s an easier thing to do. I’d avoided it so far as I thought it could make her MORE reactive when she is let out of the room to find new people in the house - but maybe she would eventually learn that we would only be letting people in who were friends etc?

Why can't she sit stay anywhere? I mean why specifically at the bottom of the stairs? If there is a convenient living room then she can sit stay there as well so you can use that area if she is upstairs when you/teens get to the door. It's not about location it's about behaviour, sit stay happens when the doorbell goes, regardless of where she is.

@JustALittleHelpPlease - the problem is that her instinct is to run into the hallway towards the front door anytime the doorbell goes. While I’ve been trying to train her to sit and stay at the bottom of the stairs WHEN the doorbell goes, this is proving quite difficult.

There are only so many times in a day we have the opportunity to ‘rehearse’ this (ie one of us goes and rings the doorbell, another makes sure dog sits and stays), and equally, when the doorbell goes ‘for real’, it does need to be answered fairly quickly obviously….

You need to do some training on making the door bell really boring.
With one of you outside keep ringing the doorbell while someone is inside making her sit and stay.
That way she won’t always associate the doorbell with someone at the door

I wouldnt be asking for a sit stay that is pretty hard when the dog is already overaroused especially a collie who loves movement and to move.

i would ring the door bell and put a treat on a mat - this can be near the door to start with. To her ring the bell and treat appears.

If you really want to get this sorted it may be worth getting a new doorbell with a different sound. You can practice with the door bell not attached to the door for a couple of weeks. So sit in kitchen ring the bell and treat appears on mat.

Over time increase the distance from the bell and the mat.

When your dog consistently goes to the mat ( this will not take long at all) then you are ready to attach to the door. You must sort out the dog before opening the door, so yell at door you are coming to give you time to treat the dog and shut the door on the room the dog is in. then go to answer the door.

Your end behaviour will be door bell rings dog runs to mat (which should be in a room away from the door) dog gets treat. This will descalate the run to the door.

If the person comes in just let your dog be ignored and not spoken to by the visitor. Give the dog time to be relaxed around the new person.

Your dog is already over aroused when the door bell rings so to ask for a very static and controlled behaviour is a bit hard for her to achieved in this situation. Bit like asking a toddler to sit still in a soft play area.

If you can get the arousal level lower eg move to mat and engage in treats it will then be easier if you want to get still behaviour.

Another thing to check is what does your dog do when you pretend to greet someone. So when you are in a room on your own do your normal greeting as if you are going to the door eg say "morning" in the same tone of voice, or "hi" etc

I bet your dog will react to your saying this or even run to the door. Soo practice changing your dogs reaction to this say the greeting and drop food on the floor.

Over time the dog will hear the greeting and head will go down to look for treats rather than concentrate on the visitor.

@Polkadotties - thank you. Yes it does need to be made boring for her, I guess the issue is that it either heralds the arrival of people she usually knows (so high excitement) or strangers (that she clearly increasingly feels she needs to protect us from).

@Ivedonethisthreetimealready - brilliant suggestions, thank you so much for your thoughtful response. Definitely a good idea to change the doorbell sound and train this way. So you think with guests, it would be okay if I can train her to run to front room expecting a treat, then to close the door on her and wait a bit until the guests are in and settled and THEN let her out of the room? I had resisted doing it this way until now because I thought that might cause her to become even more over-stimulated and nervous (ie she goes into a room, can't see who comes in, and the next thing is there are new people in the house)....but you think this is the way to go? xx

Yep I would work on lowering the over arousal from the door first eg mat/treat in another room.

Then you can work on lowering overarousal on meeting visitors which would be similar - new person in house treats appear on the floor. Arousal levels are lower and that alone with stop some of the growling staring lunging type behaviour. Dont encourage any interaction between visitors and dog so it is you that drops the treats when visitors arrive. When all is calm I expect she will calmly mooch over to visitors for a stroke or equally may stay away which is fine

That's great...thank you all so much. I'd been feeling at a loss as to how to handle this and really quite stressed about it, so I really appreciate all the advice

Mine is similar.. 3 years old, greets family with joy.. greets strangers with a bark ir a growl depending on her mood. We also have open plan and have not manage to nail the sit stay either although she is improving.
I have taken the path of least resistance... knock at the door..I pop her out in the garden, let the visitor in and seated. Dog can see them through the bifolds.
After a minute or two I let her in, but ask the visitor to ignore her...no eye contact or hands out. Generally my dog sniffs and relaxes... if she barks I lead her outside again for a minute or two.. then in again. Rarely does she need a third time outside. I don't let strangers try and stroke her (I don't want to be touched by strangers..why should she?!)

Usually two visits and she decides they are ok :)

@StillMedusa - glad it’s not only us if you don’t mind me saying! I’ve feel a bit down about it if I’m honest - I do understand that she’s only trying to protect her pack and it’s fear based more than anything, but when she barks and growls at postmen/delivery people, I can see them thinking ‘nasty aggressive dog’. ☹️

I guess we’ve just got to accept it and try to help them learn as best we can.

Mine's been nervous and 'family only' since she was a tiny puppy.. partly her breed /genetics, but mostly simply who she is. We definitely made some mistakes when she was small, not realising that she really didn't want or need to meet lots of people. I also felt very down about it.. consulted behaviourists etc.
Initially I went with the CARE approach... all positive, associate scary thing with treat , but actually it wasn't very successful. So went with a positive but I'M in charge approach. She doesn't need to get stressy because, hey I'm dealing with it not her (then rewarded ) and for her it seems to be better. A minute in the garden then relax works far better for her than allowing her stress levels to rise.

I've also accepted the dog I have, not the one I was visualising :) She's never going to be sociable with strangers but she can learn to cope better with me in charge. (She's also iffy with strange dogs so I take the same approach there..quick turn, off we go, good girl!) And I count the wins... if we didn't bark at the amazon driver today..yay.. strange dog.. oh dear, my fault I didn't take charge quick enough.. I'm being a responsible owner of a wonderful dog, who just happens to have her own needs.

She looks and sounds like a wolf so it matters that I AM in charge, even though she is actually the soppiest thing around..when she feels safe!

@StillMedusa - thank you again. It’s a really good point about learning to accept the dog you have is not necessarily the dog you visualised. I grew up with the most gentle, friendly German Shepherd - interestingly a breed that can look intimidating, but ours was absurdly calm. She barked once in her whole life (no joke), never every growled, and would let anyone stroke her.

Our young lurcher, on the other hand, is much more nervous and territorial. I definitely made some mistakes with her (lack of socialisation in lockdown didn’t help) but like your dog, she is super affectionate and calm with those that she knows….

One thought that just occurred to me, can you pop a note on your door saying "dog training in progress, we may take a minute longer to open the door, please be patient" or similar? Take some of the stress/rush out of it for you?