Dear Frances: My Dog Bolts Out of The Door!
Dear Frances,
!I have a 9 month old long-haired mini dachshund who is driving me to desperation. Samson is not my first dachshund but I fear he may be my last. I need HELP with teaching him to obey. Samson will bolt out of the door or wriggle out of his harness when I’m adjusting the fit and run. He goes next door to terrorize the female German Shepard who is on a tether. Regardless of a friendly request, or a stern command, Samson refuses to come when called. He’s very fast and I’m unable to catch him. When he got out of the door for the second time today, he ran into the farmer’s field behind our house and I had to navigate a barbed wire fence to get him. I called on my French Bulldog to help convince Samson to come and see what we were doing. When his curiosity got the best of him, I was able to grab Samson by his collar. Crawling back through the barbed wire fence while carrying a wriggling puppy could be part of the Olympic triathlon.
I attended dog obedience training many, many years ago, when I was given a German Shepard puppy as a wedding gift. We worked hard together and did great. I’m not sure where to start with Samson, though, as training to heel, sit and down don’t seem to be what is needed for this very playful and headstrong puppy. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I should add that I’m a retired senior citizen, in good health and fairly active (despite a knee injury which requires surgery). I have 3 other dogs (1 doxie and 2 French Bulldogs) who are all fairly well behaved. Thank you for taking the time to read my e-mail. I look forward to a reply, if possible.
Barbara
Dear Barbara,
I sympathize with this problem! It is no fun to chase those slippery little dogs, and this issue could turn immensely dangerous if he keeps terrorizing the German shepherd. The more this happens, the more this behavior will become a habit, so it’s important we take control of the situation now.
Now, of course we could make simple behavioral modifications like using a slip collar instead of a harness, or getting a better fitting harness, or not opening the door until he’s secure. But what if you accidentally leave the door open when bringing groceries in? What about when your guests come inside and he runs out between their legs?
As I see it you have two problems here. The first is that you lack a recall. While you may indeed be able, in some circumstances, to get your dog to come to you (like at dinner time) chances are you haven’t spent hundreds and hundreds of repetitions working on recall. Chances are you haven’t taken your dog down to the field with a long leash and practiced for weeks on end. This is what’s required if you want to see this problem get better. The reason why he doesn’t come when you ask him to is that he either 1) doesn’t know the word come or 2)doesn’t believe he has to come. If you haven’t practiced quite a bit in the front yard on a long line, I am guessing it’s the former. Remember dogs are context specific. Training recall in the living room does not mean your dog will perform well in an exciting situation, which door bolting definitely is.
So, you need to train a recall, from start to finish starting with positive reinforcement inside the house and slowly adding negative reinforcement and distractions. The key is to make the behavior of coming to you automatic, and to always be an exciting and inviting presence. You never want to use a stern voice to call your dog. If your dog is not food motivated, you may have to put away the food bowl (IE, the buffet) and only give food when training. Once the recall is solid in the house and front yard, you can start roleplaying opening the door (while he is dragging a very long line) and calling him back inside. You can slowly take him down near the German shepherd and work him around her at a safe distance. While you’re training and perfecting the recall, you need to stop wasting your “come” command in other contexts where he knows he’s allowed to ignore you. Don’t say “come” if you are stationed next to the bathtub and you know he hates baths. Don’t say “come” if it’s time to crate him and you know he doesn’t easily go inside. Keep your verbal command sacred. You need to only say the word “come” if you have a leash on to reinforce your verbal command. This may mean little Samson needs to drag a leash around the house for a while!
The second problem you have is that your dog does not respect the threshold. In my program, we spend a ton of time teaching dogs how to approach thresholds, and we do it with every single door in the house! The reason for this is simple: behind thresholds lie fun & dangerous stuff. My training dogs are trained to stop and sit behind the entry way rug and wait for permission to exit. This is the rule for every exit outside, it doesn’t matter if it’s a walk or a short potty break. If you have a back yard, you can practice this with Samson without worry that he will fly outside and escape. Use a leash, and with confident body language start to claim your threshold and demand that Samson yield space. If he rushes forward to put his nose in the door, you can pop him back behind the entryway rug. Always reward if he sits and respects the threshold on his own. If this doesn’t make sense to you, I apologize - much of dog training is this way. You may peruse our YouTube channel to get examples of this practice.
Training a recall and training your dog to respect thresholds should work. It might take time to see results especially if you are going it alone without the help of a professional, but it is time well spent. Most people do not know to do this in the beginning, and the problem quickly gets out of hand the more times the dog is successful escaping. Right now the door is somewhat of a forbidden fruit that he is preoccupied with tasting. As you begin to train around the threshold with a long line, and make the door boring as heck, your dog will become less preoccupied with escaping.
I hope this helps!
Frances
