Do you suffer with the annoyance of having a dog who barks when someone comes to the door or even when the phone rings? If you have multiple dogs, maybe more than one dog gets going.

Barking at the Door

I have used two strategies to deal with this and I’ve heard of a third.

[1] The management way is to open the side door of our living room. Our dogs will run out into their fenced yard, where they can see the front porch a bit better. Not every house has a setup that will work for this, and admittedly it’s a lazier approach. But it also gets the dogs outside so people can come in without exuberant greetings. Then if we let the dogs back in, the people are ready for them and we have ascertained that they aren’t afraid of big dogs.

[2] The training way is fun. You need a friend of neighbor to help you out. You give this person a bunch of treats — little bits of hot dog, cheese if your dog can digest it, or my dogs will work for carrots. These treats can be in a little plastic bag or some other handy little pouch.

Your helper comes to the door and knocks or rings the bell. (Practice with both.) Your dog or dogs bark. You open the door and the dogs make a fuss. The friend waits till quiet arrives and then praises the dog and gives a treat. A clicker can also be used, at the moment that the dog is quiet. I also ask them to sit (which they already know) as well.

Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

Different dogs will take different numbers of repetitions to get the point, that being quiet and sitting is a good thing to do when someone comes to the door.

Practice this at different times of day, with different people, and you should soon have a better situation.

When I’ve had multiple dogs, I trained the most vocal one first, individually.

[3] Another approach is to ring the doorbell many times a day yourself, with nobody there. The idea is that the dogs would get bored with barking if there is no action following it. I bet this works, but I haven’t tried it.

Barking When the Phone Rings

This can sure be a nuisance. When LarryDog was young, he barked at everything in his world, including phone calls. I often let him outside when the phone rang — the management strategy.

The training method involves immediately saying “Sit!” when the phone rings and giving a treat when he’s quiet, meanwhile answering the phone. A bit tricky, but could be practiced with a friend.

Not recommended is the approach used in this historic photo from the Florida State Archives: letting the dog take the call!