REGION – Some dogs are naturally very affiliative toward humans. They love people. I have two of these dogs. This is often a genetic trait. It is a trait that I select for when getting a puppy from a breeder. If that puppy doesn’t throw themselves at me, then I’m not getting that puppy. I want a dog who will be safe around humans.
This sociability trait tends to show up in the sporting breeds like golden retrievers and Labradors. I also see it a lot in doodles, who are a mix of poodle and a sporting breed. But lots of breeds can be genetically predisposed to love people, and love them a lot.
The behavior tends to escalate at adolescence (7-8 months old) and can become really difficult to manage. This is “over-arousal” or “over-excitement.” The dog loses his or her mind temporarily when presented with the opportunity to greet a human.
Rejoice if you have a dog who loves people. Even if it is a bit difficult right now, we can take steps to change the behavior. A dog who fears people is a bigger problem, one that is much more difficult to change and is potentially dangerous.
Think about what young puppies learn about humans. When the puppy approaches a human, what does the human do? The human reaches down and makes puppy noises and pets the puppy, right? The puppy jumps on the human, trying to reach the face. This is very self-reinforcing to the dog. The dog loves the attention and will do it again and again. But now the dog weighs fifty pounds, and jumping isn’t cute anymore.
Management is your first step. If you set up your home environment to actually prevent the dog from “rehearsing” the behavior, you can interrupt it before it is rehearsed.
In the long term you want to teach your dog to greet visitors politely and briefly, but for young, exuberant dogs this is not realistic. Adolescent dogs have little to no impulse control. Management is your friend.
To manage your over-greeter at home, you need to have a safe place to secure your dog when visitors arrive in the home. The most highly charged moment for dogs is when people walk through the threshold of your home. This is when you need to actually prevent the dog from practicing the behavior.
If you have a dog who is crate-trained, then using the dog’s crate is the best possible way to safely secure your dog during this highly charged time. Put your dog in its crate with a long-lasting food treat before the guests arrive. Once everyone is in the home and sitting down, the excitement is lowered a notch – but it is still exciting.
Still using management, you can put your dog on a leash, treats with you, and bring your dog out to join you and your visitors. Have your mat or other familiar station by your side and begin to reward your dog for settling on the station. Do not let your dog greet your visitors.
Do this for about ten minutes, rewarding the dog intermittently for settling with you, and then calmly return the dog to the crate with something yummy. You have just successfully navigated a full training loop without letting the dog “self-reinforce” by the over-greeting behavior. You can repeat this after a half hour or so. Each time you bring your dog out, the dog should be able to regulate itself a little bit more.
Sometimes you do want your dog to greet a visitor. Here is what I recommend. I learned this from Suzanne Clothier. She calls it, “Go say hi, one, two, three.” It allows the dog to greet, but keeps it very short, so the dog doesn’t get over stimulated.
Here is how to practice this technique. With your dog on a leash, and about 8 feet away from your visitors, visitors sitting down, wait for your dog to offer you attention (eye contact) and then give the dog a simple cue (sit, down, touch).
When your dog responds to your cue, the dog’s reward is to go over to greet the visitor when you say the words “go say hi”. But there are rules.
As your dog is greeting, count out loud, “One, two, three.” After the “three count,” with food in your hand, lure the dog away from the visitors, and then give the dog the food. Repeat the exercise three times. Then go back to having your dog lie quietly by you on its station. Then return the dog to the crate.
You are creating a predictable routine for the dog that ensures that the dog is not rehearsing the over-greeting, and is also getting rewarded for calm behavior.
Over time and with maturity, dogs will grow out of this behavior if you start preventing the self-reinforcing. If the dog continues to self-reinforce, the behavior will continue.
For those of you who have more advanced training skills, you can train your dog to offer an alternate behavior when people come to the door. For example, If your dog has a strong “go-to-crate” cue and going to the crate is a predictor of wonderful treats, you can start pairing running to the crate with people coming into the house. The dog eventually learns that when visitors come, high value food appears in my crate. The dog will offer the behavior of going to its crate upon the stimulus of visitors arriving. This works really well, but it does require more advanced training skills.