# How to teach my dog to greet others..



## Dagwood_55 (Oct 28, 2014)

6 Mo old GSD male. He's doing real well with the basic commands.

We have a home biz and people come over a couple of times a day. Especially when the person is a male, my pup will bark continously and loudly at them. So far he doesnt seam aggressive and sometimes will even way his tail while barking. Its not been a problem besides being annoying. Usually after he barks awhile, makes friends with them and then he's then all over them, again annoying.

But as he is getting bigger quickly, how can I make sure this behaviour doesnt change to aggressiveness and heaven forbids he bites someone. I want him to bark once or twice and then to ignore them or stand down. I feel he now needs to be learning some "people manners".

Not only do I not know how to train him in this next level, I'm also not sure exactly what I want him to be doing..

Can someone point me in the right direction?


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## Pax8 (Apr 8, 2014)

What kind of training have you done so far? I was the same with mine, I want him to bark twice, then back down and basically get direction from me. I made sure he had a very solid alternative behavior before working it with the distraction of the door - in this case a place command, where he lays on his bed for further instruction. And then we drilled door greetings with family and friends where we had a lot of control over what happened. They knocked, he barked twice, and then I immediately cut in after the second bark with his place command. Since he was a bit wound up the first few times we did it, I had his leash on him so I could give him extra guidance. Once he was there and holding quietly, he got lots and lots of awesome rewards (hot dog and cheese!) while I answered the door. When I could depend on him to run to his bed on command without help from the leash, we went off leash with the behavior. As he got better, I faded the crazy excitement I used to reward him for going to his place. And now he barks twice and immediately lays quietly on his bed.

It takes a lot of practice, but have a solid behavior first. Then add in the distraction with decoys (family/friends) who give you a lot of control over the situation. And finally work up to real life stuff. Work on the place work and greeting people separately because they are their own separate monsters. I typically have puppies on leash and work on controlling excitement by removing them from the room when they get overexcited, waiting until they've calmed, then reintroducing them. This way they learn they only stay and greet if they control their excitement.


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## scarfish (Apr 9, 2013)

one of our dogs has to be put in a crate in a seperate room when we have guests over. she also will still keep barking so she has to wear the ecollar and get a nik whenever she starts up.

we've tried having her meet guests outside, having her on leash with prong, putting her in down stays, treats in hand, having guests ignore her even had trainers come to the house to work with her. she's now 2 years old and nothing has worked. if she wants to act like a punk she can just wait in the crate with the ecollar while people are over. seems to be the only sure thing that works with her.


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## Dagwood_55 (Oct 28, 2014)

"What kind of training have you done so far?"

He has his basic commands down, sit, lay, stay, come, roll over and leads very well. He pays attention and really tries to do what I ask. He gets plenty of excersize and I spend time with him every day. IMO he is well adjusted and has a great personality.

My biggest hurdle to the problem is: We live in the country, so during the day, he likes staying outdoors, many days all day long. And people will sometimes drive up and get out before I know they are here.

Tho not desirable, I can handle the barking as it is now even tho I had rather him stand down on command. I just dont know if I should be concerned about him becoming more aggresive in greeting strangers as he gets older.


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