-Reframing “Hello”
We don’t tell dogs when we’re having company. Visitors are always surprises to your dog. This can be a big deal for some dogs and sometimes it evolves into a big deal for them over time. We don’t always spot small changes in their behaviors. Left with creative control on greeting company, dogs will develop their own styles and rituals.
For all intents and purposes, Puppy Luna met environmental changes in a chill and confident manner. She was solid with the new people she met and even greeted contractors like they were old friends. Knowing that today is not forever ** and with an eye on Grownup-Luna, I wanted to help her practice this lovely greeting behavior as she matured.
The official greeting begins when the door is opened and the stranger appears. Inevitably, the greeting ritual of dogs begins to ramp up when environmental changes signal to them that interlopers are in the area and headed for the entrance. And dogs get all their information about the new people when the door opens. We travel all kinds of novelty and novelty can be exciting or intimidating. Once the door is open and the person is headed into the house, the dog often takes full advantage of the opportunity to explore the new person and to begin deciding what they are going to do next.
What if the doorway stopped being the ‘all access area’? Making that shift is not as difficult as it may seem.
Step one is to lower arousal around the doorway/entrance. It doesn’t have to become the landing spot for the majority of the dog's power, presence and enthusiasm. In a way, allowing the doorway to be charged is like loading a gun, it’s often a happy gun but it’s still a gun. When is this greeting most often practiced? It’s practiced every day when we come home. If the dog is crated when we enter there are still times when family members return and the dog is free or when we leave to exit the house for brief moments to grab something from outside and then we return.
Every time we open a door, exit and return we’re doing our part to charge the doorway as a place where the people coming in and the dog who’s already inside are meeting in space right around the entrance. You can’t really blame a dog for responding to such an often repeated activity.
When there is a puppy in the household or a newly adopted older dog, everyone is adjusting and learning on an almost daily basis. Both the dog and the humans benefit from having marks to hit in highly exciting situations. Visitors are always exciting. I was thrilled to be able to start Luna on the Greeting Station Protocol from an early age. The simplest change of how people entered her space would give Luna a completely different doorway protocol. I wanted to keep that version of Luna as the official greeter in the family green (practiced and reinforced often) and happening away from the door or baby gate as often as possible.
It was fun to get the opportunity to teach Luna about the Greeting Station from early on. It was especially fun because in one of the few videos I took there was construction going on and you could see how little she cared about the noise,vibrations, strangers in the house and swinging lumber.
Each entrance presents an opportunity for us to practice walking with them to an assigned greeting station where they could sit and get a treat. This bypasses creating the modern dog script of highly charged greetings at the point of entry. Luna would be greeting everyone who entered her living space in the same way and would be practicing initiated teamwork at the point of entry.
It was so cool to watch Luna do this with some of her family:0) She made everyone look like a professional dog handler. The power of knowing what to do strengthens communication and skills for both dogs and people.
Luna learned new things with ease. This took little time to teach her which makes me a little bit sad. The only video I have is of the first few times we practiced it. Had it taken longer to teach her there would be more variety in us practicing this with her.
Bonus Benefits of this practice include:
Lessons the likelihood of a dog bolting out the front door.
For dogs who have anxiety about visitors it lessens the emotional charge of the door which gives you the opportunity to work with your dog without them feeling magnetized to the doorway because it is the center of all action when people visit.
Gives you a chance to put down your groceries or bags while your dog walks with you into your living space instead of tackling you at the door.
Sets the standard for practicing collaboration and communication as a life skill not as a training drill which makes it more organic to both of you.
When you have more than one dog cooperation begins at the doorway as opposed to competition.
Every member of the family should be able to do this in some way which creates consistency.
This is the best video of practicing with Luna:
*In all Puppy World I remember that today is not forever…." this applies to the behavior we love just as much as it applies to the behaviors that drive us crazy. This applies to our dogs throughout their lives with puppyhood being the time it is most often a reminder that keeps us focused on celebrating the wins and learning from how things can get off course.
Copyright Emily Rogeness 2022
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