Barking is a hot topic, huh?
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about The Magic Box, and I’m pleased to report it’s still working (mostly) well. The trick is catching Cooper before the frenzy starts, or else it’s a lost cause. Emmett, though… Since he can’t really hear the trill, and he doesn’t bark at anything outside the house anyway, well, my sweet old boy just can’t figure out what makes The Magic Box spit out treats. He’s made it a habit to check it every few hours–after naps, after walks, after going outside, etc.–just to see if there are treats there.
Anyway, this isn’t about that exactly. This is about The Hedgehog Effect.
(I have a weird compulsion to name everything, apparently. It’s my Name All The Things Thing. Also, it’s always too chaotic when we use The Hedgehog, so no pics… but here’s one I posted recently on Facebook!)
After things passing by the house, Cooper’s next biggest flip-out is when anyone comes in the house. He gets SO excited, pretty much regardless of who it is. Even strangers, the little weirdo. Part of his excitement is shrill, frantic barking. Then, he redirects. When he used to do that to Lucas, it would occasionally turn into a fight. With Emmett, thankfully, Em just walks away. Cooper also jumps up, and he also smiles. The barking + jumping + smiling makes an intimidating picture for anyone who doesn’t know him or for anyone who’s his same size… Like our 6-year-old nephew, Owen, who’s pretty much eye-to-eye with Coop.
Rewind back to 2014: We attempted to curb this problem by handing Cooper a toy whenever we came in the house. It worked wonders. It was an instant fix, actually, which almost never happens with dog training! But then three things happened to derail.
First, we almost never remembered to put out a toy and give the full explanation to guests to give him upon entry, so that relationship never formed in Cooper’s mind.
Second, WE got complacent and kept forgetting to refill the toy bin in the garage, and it became so inconsistent that we all just sort of forgot about it.
Third, the toys that he didn’t outright destroy lost their luster. We just couldn’t keep a stuffie around for long enough to work more than once, and the hard rubber toys that last are way less cool, apparently, to Cooper.
But, now that we live so close to Owen, he comes over nearly every week to have game night or movie night or cookout or whatever. All things that include the dogs. So, we talked about what toys motivate Cooper the most. Interestingly, we came to the same conclusion as the toys that motivate Emmett the most:
A hedgehog.
I don’t know what it is about these stuffed hedgies, but they are THE winner in our house.
Kroger sells the cheap version, so John bought a whole bunch. The last time Owen came over, I called him up and asked him if he wanted to help me train Cooper to be calmer whenever he comes over. Of course he said yes. So, I told him I’d set a hedgie on the step and, as the dog trainer, he needed to hand Cooper the hedgie as soon as he walked in the door.
He did, Cooper dashed off to shred his reward, and all was calm.
We repeat each time Owen comes over to great success!
A couple weeks later we had the chance to really put The Hedgehog Effect to the test. My friend, who Cooper’s only met once, was in town visiting with her mom and her 3-year-old. Then, my sister came over with Owen.
It was chaos, the kind of thing that gets Cooper riled up.
But, honestly? He was (mostly) a perfect angel!
He shredded two giant hedgies into thousands of small pieces, but he didn’t jump on anyone. He didn’t bark in anyone’s face. He was pretty darn good!
Since then, whenever we’re worried that a situation will be overwhelming for him or get him riled up, we bust out a hedgie (or two) as needed. We’re reserving it for those stressful situations and stranger greetings–we’re back to regular, boring rubber toys for when we come in the house. I want to keep the hedgie special, plus his carbon footprint is getting so big… I may have to install another rain barrel to make up for it! But, it works to keep him calm.
There you have it. The Hedgehog Effect.
Are your dogs effusive door greeters like Cooper? How do you manage it?
Happy weekend, everyone!!
Omg our boys sound vicious when someone comes to the door. Add to that our new fence and small kids next door with their balls flying into our yard prompting these poor little children to come to our door to get it back and you have all you need for a meltdown. Still working on it but not sure what to do. Last time one of them hit the handle and we almost had a dog out the door. They would not be mean if the kids came in…but oh boy the barking!!!!
Oh, my goodness…. I feel like I’d be the mean old lady who kept the kids’ balls! 🙂
Mine hear everything. We live on a gravel road, so they hear the cars crunching by, and all the kids that walk down the road. UPS and FEDEX trucks are Milah’s favorites. She knows their sound by heart. Justice is my problem child. Or at least he was. Six years ago when we got Milah, when we brought her home I am not sure she had ever been in a house before. I think she was a farm dog. We made the mistake of leaving her home alone for a couple of hours. That was a mistake I never made again….LOL…long story short, she was not a well behaved as YaYa, and would tend to run off after squirrels and not come back. So off to training both of them went. I used SitMeansSit and it worked great. So I decided to use them again with Justice. He is a bit like Cooper. Everything and everyone that walks by our house or comes to our door causes him to go into a frenzy. He’s had 3 at home lessons and gasp, 2 group lessons and yesterday the mail lady was actually able to deliver mail right up to the door without the doors threatening to go through the screen after her!! It is amazing what dedicated training can do. The key is what you said…..get them back from the door and into a sit/stay before they get fired up.
Thanks for sharing!!
Those little sounds–like the gravel crunching–become “learned” SO fast!!
That is INCREDIBLE about the mail lady. Congratulations to both of you… that kind of win takes so much hard work on both ends of the leash! I’m so proud of you both!!!
Our beagle Cricket goes nuts when we come home. Her craziness winds up Luke, and it’s really just a hectic scene. It’s something I’ve just never had an idea of how to control. She loves her balls, so I’ve thought of giving her one of those when we come home, but then I worried that the ball would just wind her up even more!
I’m so glad you’ve discovered something that works for Cooper, and we might have to look for some of these awesome hedgehogs. I noticed today when Luke was a little nerved up about construction work going on here, that giving him a toy gave him something to focus on (he was totally destroying it, but as long as I can find cheap toys that’s OK!).
YES!!! That’s totally it for Cooper… he can destroy the toy to get his anxiety/over-stimulation out in a more productive manner than barking, jumping, and pummeling Emmett! It seems to really work, but the toys definitely do NOT last.
We were at PetSmart last weekend & they had a whole bin of $2 toys that weren’t hedgehogs… I bought two to try them out! Fingers crossed they work just as well!
Callie used to get all excited when people came to the door. Her sweet little wiggle butt self wouldn’t ever intentionally hurt anyone. She almost toppled the recliner one day jumping into it to help me answer the doorbell.
What a great follow-up post to The Magic Box! My central asian shepherds hear everything in and out of the house! They especially know when grandma’s here, they run to the door when they hear her car pull in the driveway lol