Inappropriate Greeting At The Door

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

One of the things we're struggling with is how Murphy responds to guests when they first arrive.  It usually starts with Guinness hearing someone at the door (before they knock or ring the bell).  He (Guinness) gets excited and runs to the door.  That sets Murphy of and he runs, following his brother and barking the whole way.  We keep leashes at the door so that we can immediately leash him up...but he's already in a his "zone" at this point.  It's very difficult to control him, even with the leash...he's jumping and just going "crazy".  Now at this point, Guinness gets all upset himself, and he starts.  It takes a good five minutes of struggling before I get the two of them calmed down enough to do a sit/stay.  Sometimes the visitor is still outside during this, and other times they're standing at the door looking horrified.  After this five minutes of "crazyness" things are fine, and the dogs relax and are great with the visitor.  Anyone else with this problem....how do you handle it?

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Well, you know this is an issue for us. Our situation is complicated by the design (or lack of) of our entry. It is 8 feet long and a little over 3.5 feet wide with 2 solid walls. We call it the cattle shoot. PLUS it opens into the HALLWAY. To complicate things even more we take our shoes off at the door so we have a bench in the "shoot" leaving about 30 inches of maneuverable width. Now that you have that picture this is how it goes when the doorbell rings:

Tara takes off for the entry, barking . I arrive shortly after. I direct her to lay down and stay in the hall (since there is NO room for her in the entry). Once she is laying in the hall (which is the only place she can see the door from) she is effectively blocking anyone from leaving the entry. I head for the door keeping one eye on her and one on the door (not an easy task!!). As I SLOWLY open the door she may break her stay. If she does I slam the door in the person's face mumbling an apology and redirect Tara. I try opening the door again. Once I successfully get the person in the "shoot" there is no way to get them out without encountering Tara. If I release her from the stay she takes that to mean it's okay to jump on the person and I have pretty much lost control of the situation at that point. She remains overexcited for about 5 minutes or so as with your dogs, Jane, and then calms down to a manageable state. She is never really calm or relaxed in the down/stay position when a person is entering the house, so when she is released, it seems she has a huge amount of built up excitement to release.

[Ronna, Murphy & Wilson]

It sounds to me like you are doing everything right considering the space you have to work with. If you look at my Murphy's video you will see that guests have no choice but to walk by Murphy. They don't have to step over him but do have to walk by. Lets say there was a wall there and they could walk no farther. I think it would be okay to release Murph right there with the guest standing in front of him. At that point the issue is not where Murph is located (or Tara) but how they respond when released. If Murph was released at this point and did not jump on my guest I would feel successful. If you notice in his video when he is released and runs into the living room he wants to jump and I immediately put him in a sit to regain control and then I release him to be petted. I say you're doing great just work on the not jumping upon release.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

I watched your video! Wow! Murphy just does a great job and is so CALM!! When the bell rings he is much calmer from that point on than Tara is able to manage!

I had an accidental opportunity to practice with her at the door today. DH made a banging noise in the back of the house and Tara thought it was someone at the door. She charged to the entry as normal. When I got there I directed her to down/stay on a rug that is around the corner from the entry in the living room/dining room area. She could not see the entry from this location. I decided to try Adina's suggestion this time as I knew there wasn't a real person coming in. I left her there and went to the door and opened it and pretended that I was talking to someone. Then I closed the door and returned to Tara. She stayed the entire time!!! Horray!! Now, I know it is different when there is actually a person there but this was still encouraging for me! :)

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I think it's amazing that she didn't break the stay to go see who was there! I don't know if JD will get to that point in my lifetime!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

I was amazed too!! She was on full alert though with ears up, head cocked, nose sniffing-trying to gather information!! Everything was working except her legs!! LOL!!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

We have really been practicing the sit/stay and down/stay since the incident at the Petstupid store. Today we had her staying while we bounced ping pong balls past her (REALLY funny to watch her head!), dropped cheese pieces around her, threw stuffed animals over her head and danced around her. Also I got a peacock feather (one of her most wanted items in the house) and brought the cat into the room and played with the cat and the feather in front of Tara. She did really well with all of this. Not perfect but I would say a 9.5 out of 10.

Also when she was fairly young she learned to down/stay in the kitchen or L.R. while I went to the back of the house to hide one of her toys or a treat for her to hunt for. She learned or "knew"that if she waited it would result in something fun or tasty. Now if I can somehow transfer that "knowing" to the door/visitor situation...

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I am so impressed by this, I can't tell you.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Ditto...you are a "model" for us. Hmm, is Tara our next "success story"?

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Oh sweet success!!! It is so close I can taste it!!!!! ( But not QUITE here yet) :)

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I don't know... 9.5 at the front door sure feels like success to me. At this point I'd take a 5.0.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Sorry, Jane the 9.5 was NOT at the front door :( We were just practicing the sit and down stay with distractions but without the bell at this point. We have also been practicing the "go to your place" when the bell rings but we just started that since this discussion started so we still have some work to do in that area. If you want to start a new discussion entitled "Sit/Stay under ping pong ball torture" we might qualify for a success!! LOL!

[Ronna, Murphy & Wilson]

She did great with your pretend visitor this afternoon and the awesome thing is you knew there wasn't anyone at the door but she didn't! I can't tell you the number of times I would reach my hand out the door and ring my doorbell while Murph wasn't looking just so we could practice! It is the whole Pavlov thing....the doorbell becomes an association with the "place" , "stay", "release" that is why the repetition of hearing the bell and getting the behavior is so important. The person at the door (or pretend person) becomes secondary. As smart as our doodles are they can't really think ten steps ahead. With practice Tara will hear the bell which she will know means to go to her place, then to stay and then to be released. And then she will start thinking about the guest being there! Of course I don't actually have any idea what Murphy is really thinking ...probably just wants me to get the hell out of his way...LOL. But from watching and learning with him this seems to be what's going on in his little head while he works out what to do.

You and Tara are doing awesome! Keep practicing!