Dog Listening is humans changing our body language so the dogs understand us. However, the correct use of our home to create safe spaces for our dogs also massively helps. We can use physical barriers to do the teaching for us.
These are some of the problems that can be avoided by giving our dogs a safe space : Stress wees, barking, jumping up, panting, rushing maniacally around, presentation of toys, shoes being chewed etc.
When I was first raising litters I learnt that cutting their room internal door in half meant I could easily, silently, calmly be able to monitor what was going on. I climbed in and out of the room without having to negotiate twelve puppies and a door. As we re-designed our home in Seaview I created stable style doors for several rooms because it also made my life easier with adult dogs. We had many of my grown up puppies visiting and being able to monitor my dogs and the visitors while they calmed down either side of the door was simple.
I have learnt that using puppy/child gate style barriers as your puppy grows up is actually also useful for the rest of their lives with us. I have a hilarious video of a small sproodle climbing out of her puppy pen, the kind that is sold that is very low and also has handy horizontal bars for them to climb up. They only work for sproodle puppies aged up to 6 weeks. The normal height child gate is also too low for Sproodle puppies by four months many of them can leap over the top. I also have video evidence! They are also clever enough, as you can see in the photo, to reach and open the gate with their mouth, yes I have more video evidence!
I highly recommend the super HIGH child gates. If the puppy is very little you can use a temporary solid barrier attached with cable ties at the bottom until they can’t squeeze through. When I start coaching new clients we go through the ground floor layout and work out where is the best safe space for their dogs. Dogs love an area where they can sleep un-disturbed, have no view of doors and can relax.
When we have human guests visit this is best place to give to our dogs. It takes all pressure off them to investigate why there are strangers in the home. They can see, hear and smell the new people but the gate shows them the responsibility is ours. If your dog still barks at visitors then calmly say thank you and then close a solid door as well until they are quiet. Once you can see they are feeling calm we can open the gate OR decide not to. This takes away all the stress on everyone.
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