# Crazy greeter



## PawsOfAloha (Apr 29, 2010)

I am posting this a second time, but in this category which seems to be more appropriate for my question. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Koa is almost 2 years old and listens well except when people come over to our house. We have made a point to socialize him with new and different people and he's calm and happy when seeing people out of the house. But when we have guest or handymen come in he goes into crazy mode. Nothing aggressive. Just overly excited, full body wagging, whining, and pushy. We've tried "claiming" our guests and having him lay and wait until he's calm to release him to say hello, but even 20 to 30 minutes later he's still whining and trying to combat crawl to our guest! How else can we help him to greet people in a calm manner? Any help would be greatly appreciated :apple:


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## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

I have the same problem, too much love and joy. We want our dogs happy and socialized so we can have people in the house, but TOO much GSD in the face can be a problem.

I tend to just manage at this point, sometimes putting the dogs in a back room if I know the people coming over will be too overwhelmed. Usually letting the dogs out later on, they will be calmer.

Bet you get better suggestions from others though.


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## Caledon (Nov 10, 2008)

I have the same problem. If I answer the door I put her in a down stay. I found that in a sit stay she would take liberties and stretch her neck out as far as she could towards the guest without moving her feet. In a down stay, she will sometimes crawl, but I just send her back. 

It's really hard to work on this because the person at the door wants to meet her and she knows it. What I really need is helper to ring the doorbell and work on controlled greetings at the door. 

When my kids (25 and 18 year olds) answer the door it is all about who is on the other side and "don't make my friends wait" till I get the dog settled. Then I hear them complaining to their friends about how hyper she is. Angers me, because they actually encourage this excitement.

My attitude is that I want to train my dog property, and a proper greeting at the front door is important, so I make the person wait. Training is more important to me than answering the door in 5 seconds or less.

I didn't train her to do this but sometimes when the doorbell rings she will automatically run to her kennel. I had asked her to do this once when I knew the person coming over was afraid of dogs.


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## bianca (Mar 28, 2010)

I have the same situation and now I have Molly (shes only 6 months) on a lead and I make her stay on her bed (in the same room) for however long it takes for her to become calm. When she eventually goes over to greet, if she jumps up etc I pull her back until calm again etc etc!!!!!


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## Mary Beth (Apr 17, 2010)

Sting was like that. What worked to calm him down, was to ignore him. Both of us, the guest and I would turn our backs when Sting was in full greeting mode (jumping up, barking, going for the repairman's tools) - the repairman held his tool against his chest. We stayed with our back turned until Sting got the message that the guest wasn't his new play buddy. It took about 10 seconds. Then I talked to the guest. If Sting came up to sniff - fine, but as soon as he tried to mouth the fingers or jump up, I asked the guest to just turn his back and put his hands in his pockets. People were understanding - one new neighbor was skeptical but game, and was impressed when it worked. I got this idea from the book by Turid Rugaas "Barking: The Sound of a Language" - the chapter on door greeting.


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