We've got our expert trainer Nick White here. Nick you know
one of the things I have a challenge with is our dogs
at home, every time the doorbell rings, they go nuts. And then as
soon as you open it they race out the door to meet the person
that's there. How do you stop that? So that's a question we
get all the time. We call that door manners, getting the dog
used to waiting at the door versus running out the door.
The biggest thing that you can really do to help fix or prevent
that is practice it every day. You can have your wife go out
ring the doorbell. When the dogs react the way they do, then you
work on calling them back putting them in a sit, putting
them on their dog bed and now when you do that throughout
the day when it actually happens when it's the mailman a
package being delivered, it's just another one of those reps
versus trying to fix is the one time a day that it actually
happens. A question that I have that happens at just about
everybody's house you go to. You're sitting at the table and
and the dog comes up, so cute, and he's begging for food but
you don't want that to happen how do you stop that dog from
doing that? Yeah generally that's a behavior like many that
owners create. So how you create that is you give the dog food
from the table. Maybe you have a child, that's where we see it
a lot, toddler, you're not looking, they'll drop some food
down, so essentially you're teaching the dog, the reward
comes from the table. So what we always recommend it's fine
to give your dog most human food. However, never from the
table and instead of giving it from the table, always put it in
their bowl after you eat dinner, so now the dog associates the
human food comes from by bowl so now while you're eating
dinner at the table their waiting at their bowl waiting
for you to bring it over, versus waiting at the table. Alright
every dog is different we know that but is there a way to kinda
control your dog when it's barking at everything that moves
outside the window and trying to calm it down? So a lot of the
time it comes down to a few things. Obedience, that's always
the solution for a lot of people's issues. And then the
second thing is get them physically active. Get them out.
Get them on runs. A lot of that is pent up energy. They've been
in the house all day. They see fun they see, you know, the
mailman the bicycles going by and they just have a lot of that
pent up energy, so excercise disipline, that always helps
You know so many people love dogs and then they go out and
they adopt a dog and then at some point you find out maybe
this dog's a little bit too much for me or my family. How do you
know when that happens and what do you do? Yeah one of the
things we always talk to people about is ensure that you're
picking the right dog based off their demeanor, based off their
athelticism. The problem we see a lot of times is people will
pick dogs based off their looks and we just know that doesn't
work cause maybe you're a very athletic person and you see a
cute dog, but then, they turn out to be not such an athletic
dog and now you got a dog that didn't match your lifestyle
However a lot of the times Curt is we see the opposite. We see
a dog where you're not that athletic of a person, you see a
cute Belgian Malinois like some of the ones here tonight that
are super high energy, super driven dogs that need a lot of
attention and a lot of athletic work. A lot of excercise. Yeah
and if you're not the person that's doing that it's gonna
create problems. They're gonna get crazy in your house, they're
gonna destroy things. So again it really goes back to from day
one in the beginning ensure that you get a dog that matches your
lifestyle. Kind of a lazy one or a very athletic one pick the dog
that matches that. You got a dog in the house likes to jump on
the furnature likes to jump on the bed, but you don't want that
to happen. How do you prevent that. For me I'm big on setting
the standard when you very first get the dog. I'm actually a big
advocate of not letting dogs on bed not letting dogs on
furniture from the get go. As I always say, if that's all they
know that's all they know. The problem that a lot of people do
is they let them on the bed, they let them on the furniture
and then all the sudden they don't want them on there.
Yeah maybe you have guests over and for me is pick or choose.
Either, let dogs on the furniture and that becomes the
expectation the dog grows used to or don't let them on the
furniture and that becomes the expectation and that's all they
know. So for me I'm a big advocate of just not letting
them on the bed not letting the furniture to begin with.