Dog Training and Etiquette
Good manners are the beginning of courteous behavior and as I have said in my book Dog Training Best Friends Learning Together, “Courteous behavior is the beginning of good relations with others.” In humans, good manners are comprised largely of learned social rituals. What passes as good manners in one social group may be considered bad manners in another. Good eye contact is one example. Good eye contact can be seen in some societies as conveying honesty and in others it is seen as intimidating, disrespectful or perhaps even hostile. It is interesting that these same rules can be seen in dogs too. The adaptable nature of eye contact gives us a hint that, trust and ritualized aggression are in some way related to each other.
Back to the wild behavior of door bolting. A dogs desire to bolt out the door is based in natural unchecked desire. Many dogs have a great desire to experience the novel rewards laying beyond the big cage we call home. The sweet emotions of unchecked desire often lead both human and beast astray. We can think of desire as any of the emotions that motivate or drive behavior. Dog training frequently involves controlling our animals in a way that manages or suppresses unbridled desire. We can learn from our experience training dogs that governing ourselves involves managing our animal desires and giving control to our higher nature. In this same way dogs need to learn how to give control over to the higher wisdom of humans in times of dangerous desire.
Controlling the animal both within ourselves and without takes effort, it requires conditioning. In some Chinese practices, this is referred to as cultivation. Self-cultivation can be used to help the individual evolve into a better person and build a more harmonious lifestyle. The great thing about dog training is that we can learn about self-cultivation while cultivating our canines.
Cultivation of the individual involves some type of reutilization or ritual. Rituals constrain or channel behavior in some way. With door bolting it’s desirable to teach our dogs to patiently wait until we get outside and call the dog to join us. After the dog is invited to accompany us on our foray into the world, it needs to adhere to the social customs found outside the home territory.
I need to mention that good door manners are not limited exclusively to leaving and entering doors and gates. Good door manners can also involve other behaviors that occur at or around doors and gates.
At the time of this writing in the United States positive reinforcement training techniques seem to be in high favor. It’s also my observation that positive reinforcement training techniques also tends to have the largest group of fanatic followers. There are many ways to teach our four legged friends good doggy door manners. However, because of the popularity of positive reinforcement training, in this article, I’m going to primarily discuss using positive reinforcement. To a large degree this means food rewards.
I most commonly use the food lure method with new dogs and new clients. I need to mention that clicker trainers are often totally committed to shaping this behavior. Shaping is an art that all dog trainers should learn. However, clicker training is not always necessary, nor is it always the best way to get the behavior we want. Even if clicker training is not my default style of training, I believe it is very powerful and it has an important place in training pet dogs. For more information on clicker training try reading one of these clicker training books.
This article is intended as a guide for the beginning handler/trainer. The many steps involved will ensure that fewer mistakes are made and will make the training more dependable. This door manners program is presented in a way that makes the training reliable even when done without the hands on guidance of a professional dog trainer. Usually I teach this exercise to my clients and their dogs a little different from how I present it here. An advantage of working with a dog trainer is that training can sometime go much quicker without sacrificing reliability.
Begin teaching your dog good door manners by training it to sit in the general proximity of the door. I suggest doing this by luring the dog into the sit position with food. But you do have options, one of which is using the clicker method. Use the food lure by getting the dog to follow the food into a desired position. This is often done by holding the food above the dog’s nose. As the head looks up the tail should go down. Once the dog is reliably sitting when it’s close to the door start doing the training while the dog is wearing its leash. Many dogs get quite excited when they are close to the door and the leash is put on. The whole idea is to get control when the dog is in this highly aroused emotional state. The training will also teach the dog how to be calm in this type of door situation.
The next step is to continue the training as you have been doing, but now reach for and touch the door handle. Continue touching the door handle until the dog is responding in a reliable and controlled manner.
The idea is not to advance too quickly. We need to ensure that at each step the target behavior is stable. A behavior’s level of stability can differ depending on what we are teaching. For some training we want the behavior to be extremely stable before we move on and for others we will need a lower level of stability. For door manners we want a very stable Sit, wait, exit command, and a second Sit.
Once the dog is reliably sitting at the start of several training sessions, it’s time to begin opening the door a crack. As the dog’s behavior becomes more reliable you can open the door more and more. Soon you should be able to put the leash on your dog, take it to the door, have it sit, open the door and the dog will calmly stay sitting. When your dog will calmly stay sitting for several training sessions it’s time to move to the next step.
This video futures a German Shepherd from West Side German Shepherd Rescue in Los Angeles California. For more information about dog training in Los Angeles
Usually at this point in the training it’s a matter of the human having consistent behavior. This means having well defined rules that are followed each and every time. One part of consistent human behavior is insisting that the dog follows the rules before it comes out the door. The rule at this point of the training is that the dog needs to stay inside the doorway even when the human goes outside. To do this have the dog Sit at the door, face the dog and step outside. If the dog should want to follow, simply tell it to Sit. You go in, you go out, and the dog stays inside. Waiting at the door is a training exercise just like Sit, Heel, or Down. Don’t forget to reward your dogs good behavior. When your dog waits in a controlled and stable manner, give a food reward.
When the dog is waiting nicely inside the doorway you can invite it out of the house or yard with a formal command. I usually use the Heel command for native English speakers. Whatever command you use it needs to be a formal command not a release such as “Okay.” I encourage all English speakers to never use “Okay” as a release command
Once the dog is out the door or gate it needs to Sit immediately. There is no dilly dallying around, there is no bolting to sniff, there is only Sit. This Sit is the last part of the door exiting ritual.
Here is a brief rundown of going out the door. You get to the door, the dog either sits or waits calmly by the door, you open the door and go out, the dog remains in a sit or sits as you go through the door. The dog waits until it hears the formal command to come out, such as Heel. As the dog gets out the door it goes into a Sit. After the complete sequence of door exiting behaviors have been preformed the dog can be released or given some other command such as the formal command Heel or the informal command Come On. While training revolves around food rewards the big treat for most dogs is getting out of the house.
