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Us dogs love talking to people through the door, but our humans seem to get annoyed when we do.
Instead of asking why we enjoy having a barrier in between our conversations, they shout and tell us off for simply greeting our guests.
Humans seem to be obsessed with getting us to stop barking at the door, but they never ask why we do it.
So, I’m going to let you all into a little secret and answer some of your burning questions about why dogs bark at the door.
How do I get my dog to stop barking when someone comes to the door?
So, it seems as the most common question that humans have on this topic is how to stop our behavior. Let’s just get this out of the way then, shall we? To stop us barking at the door, there are a few different things you can do.
For starters, you might want to engage with us and tell us to stop the racket. However, us dogs are a sociable lot and we love talking to humans. If we hear you barking along with us, then why would we stop? So, the first thing to do is ignore our barks.
Sooner or later, we will learn that it is not common behavior and stop on our own. You can also train us to sit or stay when the doorbell rings so that we’re focused on something else rather than our new friend. You can also train us to stay quiet on command!
Distracting us is also a viable option, either with a loud noise such as a clap, or some loud music. Making sure that we have plenty of love and cuddles will also help us to be calmer when someone comes to the door, so make sure we’re happy before the guests arrive.
What does it mean when a dog barks at the door?
We don’t bark at the door in a malicious way, and we do have a reason for disturbing you.
The main reason why we like to bark at the door is to alert our humans that someone is outside, and we want you to know so that they’re not waiting in the cold for too long.
Another common reason why we might bark is that we want to keep both us and our humans safe from potential threats. We don’t know who is outside the door as the peephole is too high for us to look through, so we might assume that there is danger ahead.
Don’t be angry at us for trying to keep the house safe from threats behind the door – we have been known to scare off intruders every now and again!
How do you make a dog shut up?
How rude! If you want us to be quiet when there is someone at the door, one of the best methods is desensitizing us from the doorbell.
If we’re barking because we’re scared of the doorbell, give us lots of yummy treats to make us feel happier every time we hear it.
Continue doing this every time the doorbell rings so that we’re distracted by treats. Over time, we’ll associate the doorbell with treats and, instead of barking, we’ll come to you for treats instead.
Make sure you don’t give us the same treats when the doorbell isn’t ringing though, as this will make us confused.
How do I train my dog not to jump on guests?
Humans always want to train our loving behavior away, but we do understand that jumping up might be annoying… on occasion… very rarely.
Anyway, if you want us to stop jumping up on you or your guests, the most important thing is to not reward us!
Rewarding us by stroking us, petting us, and cuddling us is not going to help teach us that it’s not the right thing to do. Don’t even make eye contact – simply take our paws and put them back on the ground.
Make sure everyone does this though, not just you! Any guests need to know that we’re not allowed to jump up and they need to do the exact same thing as you would. If we keep trying to jump up, distract us with a toy or treat.
You can also teach us to sit so that instead of jumping, we sit in front of the guest instead. The guest can then give us a head rub, but we might get over-excited again and jump up. Instead, make sure the guests only give head rubs once we’ve calmed down.
One thing to avoid at all times is shouting at us. We’re excited about the new guest in our home and that is why we’ve jumped up. If you start barking too, we’re going to assume that you’re excited too and therefore it’s okay to jump up.
Why does my dog go crazy when we have visitors?
This is a simple question – we’re excited, alert, or feel threatened!
We might want to say hello to our new guests and show off our cool spins and lovely singing voice, or we might want to let you know that there are new people in our house!
Alternatively, some of us dogs are not too happy with visitors near our humans. We might get territorial or wary of new guests that we haven’t seen before. If this happens, just reassure us that we like these new people and they’re friendly.
Summary
I hope that I was able to answer some of your questions about why us dogs love to bark at the door so much.
We do try and stop for you, but sometimes we can’t help but jump into protective mode to look out for our humans!
So, when we’re barking loudly at the door next, just remember that we’re doing it for good intentions. Given the right training, we will try to stop barking and get better at greeting guests.
Thanks for – wait, was that the doorbell??
