Dog barking when someone is near or at the front door

clever user name

Hey guys. Our puppy (roughly 7 months old) is doing great, the only issue we have is him going mental when someone is near or at the front door. It's not excitement, he frantically barks and growls...and he never does either of things otherwise. We're guessing it's a territorial things. I should note that he is a little wary of strangers at first. Not in an aggressive way or anything, he's just timid. Though after 20 minutes he's sitting on their lap. He's gotten a lot better in that regard, it was just a matter of bringing more people around to the house. This hasn't helped with the initial barking and growling though. He's always been like that, we don't think he was treated well before we got him which probably has something to do with it.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with the door issue? It's not a massive problem, but would like to nip it in the bud. I think we've trained him pretty well (he's a smart little bugger), but just can't seem to stop him barking and growling when someone is at the door.

Cherry Blossom

My terrier did this with the postman. I hung a plastic bag of treats on the door handle and asked him to post a few through the letterbox before and after the letters. Same thing might work for any stranger at the door.

clever user name

Oh interesting, will definitely give that a try. Thanks!

peasant

I would approach it differently:

Praise him for raising the alarm and then work on calling him off/calming him down once he has done that.

That way you should end up with a dog that is a good watchdog but doesn't frighten off people you actually want at your front door.