[Garden~Lover]

I have taken the advice of someone here. I had asked about my puppy who is a in your face dog as soon as you walk into the house. so when we come home (everyone , at anytime during the day) we just totally ignore the dogs until we get into the house, take coats off, put away what ever. probably takes about 5-8 minutes. anyways we went from total ciaos for many minutes to just a minute of ciaos from the dogs. so we are really getting them to learn not to expect us/anyone to coddle them as soon as we walk through the door. its a slow process but it seems to be really working.

Heres where my problem lies, one of my good friends is not a dog person. Not that she would ever "hate" my dogs, but im sure she would "hate" the in your face... she hasnt been over in ages. I was wondering does anyone keep their dogs away when you have people over? I could put the dogs in our basement (which is ds room) with carpet,tv,toys pretty much anything , but they would probably whine. how do I get them not to hate it. Is there a way to condition the dogs to being ok with staying in one room for a little while?
before anyone goes

: at me, this would probably only happen once a month(or less) for a hour or less. and it would not always be this way.

oh I sound so insensitve towards my dogs, dont get me wrong I love being around them. I cant be the only one who has a friend who doesnt like being around dogs.

 

[jyurina]

My dobie is a very enthusiastic, loving, HUGE dog. So we did sorta crate train him-he had the laundry room to himself to sleep in and since it is open to the rest of the house we just used a baby gate. That way too, he could see us and calm down before he was unleashed. And if the person over was scared of dogs, they were safe and I could go reassure him. We found it to be a necessity because of his size and the fact that we always had tons of kids over. Now he is older and mellower and has been door trained so it is less of an issue.

 

[Garden~Lover]

we do have a crate for her, which we use only on occasion. The crate is so huge the only place we have for it is in our living room. we have a small house. If she sees us and is behind a gate she whines, I think this has to go hand and hand with our "not paying attention to" training. although this is a different situation and Im not really sure how to handle this.
I really dont know where this stemed from we have never been ones to shower the dogs with affection,

or maybe we where and we just didnt know it.

 

[PushPineapple]

One of my dogs gets overly excited about visitors so we put him in a crate in the living room when anyone comes over. We usually let him out about 15 minutes later and he's much calmer. He's had that time to look at the guest, I think that helps.

 

[lab]

I am a dog lover and have three pampered dogs. My dogs have won the dog lottery!

That being said - I can't stand it when dogs bum rush the door. I don't like other peoples dogs when they sniff me. I think it is rude. So I treat my guests the same way and crate my dogs or put them in the bedroom.

 

[Ola_]

Yes, I put one of my dogs away when certain people come over. One of DH's aunts is afraid of dogs and starts acting weird when the dogs approach her (waves her arms and starts talking quickly) which only gets the dogs worked up. Also when we have workers over, like right now we are having work done on our kitchen. I put Chaos away so she doesn't bother them, I don't have to watch her for the whole 8 hours they're here, and for her safety.

Mayhem just sleeps so most of the time he gets to stay out. Honestly, he barely lifts his head when people come over and often doesn't bother to get up unless it's someone he knows anyway.

Usually we just put the dog(s) in our bedroom but sometimes in their crates as well.

 

[SevenVeils]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyurina My dobie is a very enthusiastic, loving, HUGE dog.

Mine is the same way. Except that he's a Saint Bernard/Great Pyrenees/Akbash Dog mix, and about 120 lbs and still growing, very much a puppy still.

I crate him in another room when people are here. Even looking at them, crated in the same room, does not help him to be calmer when he is let out so I just crate him in my bedroom and if he gets pushy in the crate I close the door. The only thing that consistently makes him accept new people calmly, is if he rides in my van with them also riding in it. For some reason that makes him act totally normal toward them- but I haven't been able to come up with a way to ask everyone (like my landlord) to take a ride with us

"Oh, you want to see my dog? Sure! Just hop in my van and we'll drive around aimlessly for a while first, okay?"

I can just see it.

 

[onlyzombiecat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garden~Lover I was wondering does anyone keep their dogs away when you have people over? I could put the dogs in our basement (which is ds room) with carpet,tv,toys pretty much anything , but they would probably whine. how do I get them not to hate it. Is there a way to condition the dogs to being ok with staying in one room for a little while? before anyone goes : at me, this would probably only happen once a month(or less) for a hour or less. and it would not always be this way.

We put our dogs in a room occasionally for guests. They are fine.
I would put them there before the people arrived if possible. I would ignore whining.

I suppose you could just do increasingly long periods until you get to your goal. Give your dogs a treat or something. http://www.dogtrainingbasics.com/HomeAloneProjects.htm

 

[daekini]

My dog is always crated when children or guest who are not familiar with him are present. He's crate trained. Crate training is NOT cruel! They are den animals, and the den is where he is safe and comfortable. He was trained to enter his crate with treats the minute we brought him home. He goes there on his own now.

 

[canadianchick]

Nope, Zander never gets put away when we have people visit.

 

[Kristine233]

We dont put them away but if they are too wild we do segragate. This usually menas I put a gate up or close the pocket doors. They can still see us but can't be in the same room and forced to calm down. We also ignore them untill they calm down. When people are over and we are sitting and chatting I make my dogs sit or lay next to me and make them focus on me so they are not bouncing off the guests. They lay or sit at my feet.

 

[mamallama]

Quote:

The only thing that consistently makes him accept new people calmly, is if he rides in my van with them also riding in it. For some reason that makes him act totally normal toward them- but I haven't been able to come up with a way to ask everyone (like my landlord) to take a ride with us

That's hilarious.

I have trouble finding the right way to ask people to throw a slimy tennis ball in the cold and slush

I am very stern with my dogs. I let them greet people at the door, but then I tell them to go lie down. They go. There was a while right after I got my second dog (adopted as an adult) where I had to physically correct them every time and stay on them, but I did (for the most part) and now they're mainly well behaved.

I did put them in the bedroom on Thanksgiving, though. It was in everyone's best interest.

I confine them when my mil comes over (not often.) She is very fearful, to the point where having them in the room scares her. I want her to be comfortable in our home.

I also confine them when too many young children come to visit. Both of my dogs are steady with children--and I trust my dogs--but unless I'm going to be supervising every second, the dogs need to be out of harms way.

 

[griffin2004]

My little Frenchie is a nutball when people come over. I leash her up when someone comes to the door. After she has calmed down and IF the guest likes dogs, I'll let her off the leash. If the guest doesn't like dogs, Pup stays leashed until the guest leaves.

Part of hospitality is making your guests feel comfortable so I try to take my cue from the guest.

 

[just_lily]

Growing up we had an Australian Shepherd that was extremely protective of the family. She couldn't handle watching anyone come through the front door until she was about 14 years old and nicely senile.

Whenever anyone came over, or anyone came to the door, we put her in the laundry room. That was her space, and is where she would go when we were out as well. Once guests were well settled and sitting (sitting was very important) AND they were comfortable with dogs, we would let her out. If anyone had any fear of dogs, we would keep her in the laundry room.... she sensed the fear, and would get aggressive. She never snapped at anyone, but she would growl and show aggression. It was better to keep her seperate for everyone's safety. (And just for the record, she was a really good family dog, and was great with us kids... she was just very protective and viewed non-family-members as threats.)

My current dogs are big babies and tend to shy away from new people. My mom was staying in my house for a whole week before my younger dog let her pet him. But while I was pregnant I had homecare nurses coming to my house several times a week (I had PIH) and they had a policy that any pets needed to be contained in a different area of the house while they were here. I guess one of the nurses had a run-in with someone's pet at some point. So I had to keep them in their crates in the (finished) basement for the hour they were here. They whined pretty much the entire time, but they were fine.

 

[Britishmum]

My dog takes a nap in the crate most times we have people over. We homeschool, so often have groups at the house for classes, co-op etc. It's just easier to have her crated. She's happy sleeping there, and there's no worries about her getting in the way.

I love my dog, but I know that not everyone else will feel the same way. If friends come who like her equally, she stays out, and has a blast - especially if they have kids who will play with her. But otherwise, in the crate she goes.

I see no problem with that at all.

 

[Jesskathand]

If we have kids over (which only happens every 2-3 months) we put our foster dog in a gated room. Snoop is too overprotective of our family and he gets nervous when kids are running around and feels the need to protect our family. There haven't been any incidents but I don't want to wait for that to happen.

He does whine and we ignore him, which is hard.

 

[Garden~Lover]

so I spent the better half of yesterday training the dogs to do "down/stay" when I open the door.(instead of plowing to the door franticly) probably should have spent more time on this before hand

anyways, it took 25 times of putting them back into down stay to get them to "stay" while I opened the door and stay until I told them they could get up.
I was so freaking happy. I am going to try and do this daily, hopefully with different people , we'll see how this goes.
and I can now successfully come home with no dog jumping and freaking out "mommy, mommy, pat me first, pat me first, look I can spin around, I can jump , I can jump. " LOL I can walk in the door, go into the kitchen say HI to everyone(humans), take off coat, put stuff away, see whats for dinner, and give the dogs some love.
everyone will still be on strict orders to ignore the dogs when they come in for some time, so we dont go back to that.
so I am going to try and get the pups trained more, but I may still have them in another room when my friend comes over. we will see how it goes, on how well I can do this...

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

 

[ShadowMoon]

My dog loves people but is very hyper and excitable when guests come over. (also, her pitbull tail can be deadly when wagging at high speeds!

) We usually crate her initially, and then after awhile, will let her out. She is much more calm after the initial burst of energy wears down.

I also make sure to have a fresh supply of tennis balls or a new chew toy to take some the attention away from new people in the house. That trick has always worked.

 

[BunnySlippers]

I tell my dog "go to bed!', when someone is at the door, or I have a guest who is not into dogs. Her bed is in the main room, where we usually are. If I were to shut her off, she may bark? Not really sure, she isnt much of a barker, but occasionally gets vocal. I find letting her be a part of the family, but having ground rules is effective for maintaining the peace.