Dear Boomer,
When we have company, Don Juan, our bird dog tries to stick his nose in, uh, you know where. He’s very persistent even though we correct him when he does it. This is very embarrassing.
Signed,
Red Faced
Dear Red,
I’ll give you an explanation for Don Juan’s behavior and the approach you can take to stop it. This is from someone who knows!
Dogs are cleaner than humans in some ways, we don’t even touch when we greet. We learn about our world through smell, hearing, touch and sight in that order. Don is just following doggy custom and smelling (greeting) your guests. Remember, they are his guests too. Dogs are believers in equal rights and would gladly let your guests smell his doggy essence if they wanted.
But you said you correct him when he does it. So I guess you don’t want him to greet “your” visitors. In a nutshell, what you do is control the situation and make it clear that he is not supposed to greet even if invited by a human. A dog thinks a human is inviting a dog to greet by just standing still or better yet, bending over.
Invite some folks over for Don Juan and you to practice greeting on. Tell your company that they are to ring or knock at the door. When you answer, they are supposed to greet you, in what ever human way you prefer, and ignore Don Juan completely.
When you hear the company at the door, put DJ on “down”. If he’s not trained well enough to hold his stay, then have an assistant keep him on down. You can use a leash to represent extra control at this point. If DJ is uncontrollable at this point, then you’ll have to abandon this intervention and go back to obedience training combined with exercise to establish your leadership.
Let’s say DJ recognizes your leadership and keeps his distance. You bring in the company and interact with them for 5 minutes or so. When DJ relaxes in the “down”, release him and with him on the lead, let him catch your visitors scent. Your visitors are to ignore DJ. If he starts to zero in on “home”, correct him and place him on down. You can do this several times until the lesson sinks in that DJ is not to greet.
So there it is. You are the leader and DJ can greet if you tell him to. Believe me, DJ will not need doggy therapy because you’re abusing him. In fact, if he could thank you for being a good leader, he would.