To stop the dogs from going psycho when the doorbell rings. I need help with this one, people. What works for you?
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New Year’s Resolution #1
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take duct tape, place over doorbell.
Suz,
I guess you could bark louder than them! Just a guess here!
Drugs!
Is that really a New Year’s Resolution or are you just trying to take the heat off your self? Get them no-bark collars, you know how well it worked for Rikki!
Who is bothering you by ringing the doorbell? I thought you lived in the country where the next ranch/oil field/Aunt Ethel is a few miles yonder. They ‘uns need to ring you up on the iPhone before just coming over like that. What? They think you have a cup of sugar they can beg? Sic them doggies on them intruders.
Instead of duct tape on the doorbell, how about duct tape around the dogs muzzles?
Just kidding! Put the leash on and have someone go outside and ring the bell. Hold the leash and when the door bell rings and the dog goes nuts, do the dog whisperer thing and “Ssshh” the dog as you give the leash a quick jerk. Repeat a hundred times and praise with a treat when they don’t react with the barking.
not having dogs
When I took my dog to puppy obedience school that lady used 3 empty soda cans held together with a zip tie with a couple of pennies in each can. When the dog would go nuts she would throw the can/pennie thing near the dog (not at the dog) and the noise it made would scare the dog into silence. I suspect you would have some interior design element issues there but maybe if you rolled it across the floor at their feet or something. The trick is to scare them with a noise that is louder than their bark. Come to think of it – maybe you just need an air horn. That might work.
I like my dog to bark, gives me a sick sense of power. Nobody has to know she would run away crying if they actually came in. Love the new phone!Very smart husband
I’d go for another resolution, that one is too hard.
Do what Beverly says. They get a treat when you tell them to stop and they actually do it. It will take a while, probably. In a lot of ways, we are really lucky that our dog doesn’t bark. OTOH, someone could come in, walk upstairs, and slit our throats and the dog would be like, “cookie now please?” WORST. WATCHDOG. EVER.
Beverly’s suggestion worked for our old dog. My mom was really clever about it, though—she had to babysit one of my younger cousins one afternoon, and she persuaded him to spend the entire afternoon ringing the doorbell, coming in, and sticking his knee in her chest when she jumped up on him. She was rewarded when she was quiet and didn’t jump. My cousin, being an 8 or 9 year old boy, happily spent the whole day “playing” with the dog. Bingo! She was trained!
i’m not a fan of doorbells. i say knock. don’t know if that helps.
could you change the tone?
For the cats we started ringing the doorbell every time we come home. Now they just associate it with our arrival and usually come to greet us at the top of the steps. Not so sure that will work with the dogs though.
I agree with Beth’s sick sense of power. I know if there is a fox or maybe it’s a peeping tom in my yard, but my dog sounds like she’s ready to kill. It’s one way of getting rid of sales people too. “Sorry my dog might bite you if I open the door”
But I never want to scare the Brownie girls away.
We gave away our dogs.
You need to think like a dog and not act like one. At least that was what I was doing. I’d yell at them and in dog speak I was just joining in with the barking. I now call the offending pooch over and make her look me in the eye and QUIETLY shush her while gently giving her a shake.
A GUN!
No just kidding I love dogs…everytime the doorbell rings squirt them with a super soaker…it really works.
You have to watch “Dog whisper” That man is amazing…we watch him all the time and I don’t even have dogs…some of his ideas can work on chilren!