How to stop barking when someone visits you.

Just received this by email and thought I should share with  you:

"How To Stop Aggression At The Front Door--In Less Than Two

Minutes..."

We had been doing a lot of traveling.

We were in Bogota, Colombia-- a very "dog friendly" town--probably
because of the constant spring-like weather.  Or maybe because,
surprisingly enough, the Colombian people are very warm and
friendly--especially when it comes to their love of dogs!

As we walked up the five flights of stairs to Aunt Rosalba's condo,
I could hear "Moneena" the Shih Tzu, barking her little head off. 

Moneena is 5 years-old and she is Aunt Rosalba's "only child," as
she likes to explain it.

Well, Moneena makes the rules in Aunt Rosalba's house.  So, when I
told Rosalba that we could fix this behavior... she looked at me
skeptically.

See, Aunt Rosalba didn't have any dog training equipment.  But that
wasn't going to stop me. 

The fortunate thing about a lot of these smaller breeds--like the
Lhasa Apsos, the Poodles, the Bichons and the Shih Tzus is that
they are extremely smart and they are very, very trainable.

The problem was that Aunt Rosalba was treating Moneena like a
child... and not like a dog.

Well, fortunately she had a leash.  Not the type of leash I prefer
(a six foot leather leash) but one of those thin nylon leashes. 

But that was good enough.  Here's what I did:

Since she only had a harness for Moneena (which you cannot use to
correct unwanted behavior) I just took the leash and ran the end of
it through the loop, like you would when you tie a slip not.  This
is the same basic premise that the chain dog training collars use.
As long as you're careful to "tug and release" - the dog will
understand the correction.  This trick won't work on big, powerful
breeds.  In fact, I prefer to use an actual training collar, even
on small breeds.  But we were in a pinch.

Once I had it on Moneena, I sent Carla outside to pretend she was a
visitor. 

Moneena heard Carla walking up the steps and immediately started
barking.  But this time, I had the leash on Moneena and I told her,
"No!" and gave a firm tug and release on the leash. 

Moneena looked up at me, as if to say, "Huh?  Nobody has ever told
me 'No' before!"

I told Carla to knock on the door from the outside, because I knew
that Moneena would think it was just a fluke.  But I was ready to
teach her that if she barks, she's going to receive a negative
association.  Normally when she'd bark at the arrival of a person
to the condo, Aunt Rosalba would pick her up and tell Moneena,
"It's okay, it's okay," all the while stroking and petting her. 

From Moneena's perspective, Aunt |Rosalba was telling her, "Good
girl!  Be more aggressive. 

Well, after I corrected Moneena the second time, she looked up at
me, and I could tell that she understood.

"Carla--knock on the door, one more time," I yelled to her, outside.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. 

Moneena didn't do anything.  Not a peep.  She just looked up at me.

"Good girl!  What a wonderful, beautiful girl!" I showered praise. 

Moneena had made the right decision.

We did it a couple more times, and each time Moneena made the right
decision and received nothing but love and praise.

And then Aunt Rosalba took her and spent the next 15 minutes in an
orgasm of pride and joy at what a wonderful and smart dog Moneena
was. 

And that's okay.

- Adam