Your friendly neighbor knocks on the door. Your dog leaps to their feet and starts losing their mind – you can’t catch them, you can’t calm them down, they won’t listen = pure chaos. Perhaps the guest comes in and your dog excitedly rolls on their back and submissively pees? Or, perhaps they cower behind you with their tail tucked and let out a little nervous growl? They could also lunge, bark and even snap at the “intruder” or jump-up on the guest and frantically beg for attention.

All of these responses show your dog lacks self-control or self-confidence in this particular social situation – we want to help you navigate your dog’s emotional thermometer and listen to you through all social situations in and outside of your home. First, however, you must understand how your dog is feeling about the situation before we can teach your dog a better why to handle this situation. As you can imagine, the aggressive response training tactic might vary from the hyper response.

Understanding your dog’s strengths and weaknesses is key to helping them develop a balanced response to situations like a guest at the front door. Here are some exercises to help you identify and develop self-confidence and/or self-control.