How to stop a reactive dog from barking incessantly at the door?

I like to take this opportunity to talk about how to stop door barking, the common approaches that we often hear, and why they do not usually work.

Many people were told they should ignore the barking and tell the dog to do another obedience command such as crate or place in order to stop the barking.

This idea of stopping an unwanted behaviour by ignoring it came from trick training.

If you are trying to teach shake-a-paw with the right paw, but the dog keeps offering the left paw, you can ignore the left paw and only reward the dog when he offers the right paw. Over time, the dog will keep offering you the right paw.

And to build on this concept, many then suggest we can stop an unwanted behaviour by asking for an alternate behaviour. When a reactive dog looks at another dog, you will ask for a sit and eye contact, then reward the dog for it.

Unfortunately, this does not actually work with reactivity. Once the other dog is close by, your dog will usually not sit, not look at you, not take treats, and still react. Why?

In the shake-a-paw example, the dog will not feel substantially different between lifting the left or right paw. The only difference lies in which paw will lead to a reward.

In that case, ignoring one paw and reinforcing another paw will successfully condition the dog to offer a particular paw more frequently.

But when it comes to the second example of the reactive dog, there is a substantial difference between the two behaviours.

Reacting to the other dog with lunging, barking, growling...will make the dog feel very empowered. It is a behaviour rooted in the dog's survival instinct. The dog is fighting for his survival. Showing aggression makes him feel more safe and in control. He can protect himself when displaying aggression. It is therefore a self-rewarding and self preserving behaviour .

The alternative, "sit", is only an obedience command. It is not self rewarding. It does not make him feel safer. The reward of this behavior is just a piece of treat. It is a behavior that carries much less value.

Ignoring the very self rewarding behaviour (ie reacting with aggression) will not stop the behaviour because the dog is already getting rewarded while performing this high value behaviour. Asking for a lower valued behavior is not going to make the dog want to stop the higher valued behavior.

This is a common problem when a trick trainer tries to apply trick training principles in behavior training.

Ignoring an unwanted behavior and asking for an alternate behavior will not work when the two options are very different in value, especially when the unwanted behaviour is genetically motivated and self rewarding, hence extremely high value for the dog.

Barking at the door is a genetic and instinctive behavior. Historically, dogs were bred to be protective of their territory. It is also a lot of fun and really empowering for a dog to keep barking.

Once the dog starts barking, asking for an alternate behavior such as "go to your bed" will not stop the dog's desire to bark just as asking the dog to sit and look at us when the dog wants to react will not stop the dog from wanting to react.

Because the unwanted behavior is of a much higher value than the other option, we need to use a high value correction to stop the dog so the dog will learn that he really should not try to do that ever again - even though it may feel very good to do so.

For barking at the door, we will use a high level ecollar correction to correct the dog. We will apply a continuous ecollar stim and go up on the level until the dog stops barking.

This correction should be quite high as we are trying to override a self rewarding behavior that is tied to the dog's genetic urge.

If we correct this properly, the dog should understand that barking comes with a very unpleasant consequence, and stop.

There are different obedience commands you can give the dog after he has stopped barking, it is up to you. The obedience commands should come after the correction. It should not come before the correction. It should not be used in lieu of the correction.

The correction part - not the obedience command - is what actually stops the barking. The correction part is therefore not negotiable and should not be skipped.

We will use a high correction applied firmly, promptly, and consistently to correct the barking before any command is given.

After we have stopped the barking, we can then tell the dog what we want the dog to do by giving the dog an obedience command.

We may ask the dog to go to his bed and lay down, go into the crate and stay there, lay down on the floor just clear of the foyer, or walk with us to the door and sit by our side as we open the door.

Going to bed, going to crate, sitting/laying down...all carry similar values. Whatever we keep reinforcing will become the action of choice. This is how we can stop the incessant barking and get the dog to do what we want when someone rings the doorbell.

Hope this makes sense.

Thank you.