Welcome to one of our Step by Step articles! In these articles, we do our best to avoid lengthy explanations and jump straight into the actions you need to take, to tackle different concerns you may have.
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The next time your dog barks at the door, try the following steps:
1. "Bark bark bark!" As your dog starts to bark at random sounds or noise from outside and goes towards the door, start calmly walking in that direction, without saying anything.
2. Once you get to the door, wait for your dog to stop barking (and maybe even a bit of eye contact from them to you) and say "Thank you for letting me know!"
3. Once your dog has stopped barking and you feel as though they're communicating with you through their eye contact/more of their attention, start guiding him back towards the area of your home where you both were before. You can either gesture your dog to walk with you or you can use a leash to help them.
(Using a leash can be useful especially if you feel as though Step 2 will be very difficult and lengthy for your dog to go through. If your dog has a tough time barking and communicating with you, you can still try waiting a little for that moment where you feel like he's talking to you, before using the leash to help him walk indoors. Walking indoors can effectively help your dog regulate his emotions and reconnect you both.)
4. After you've guided your dog back to where you were and the noise has ceased, he will likely still feel a little agitated from the door noise, but if he's no longer barking, take this opportunity to tell him "Ok! Let's go check it out.", as a way to let him know that because he chose to stop barking and came back with you, that this all results in you both checking out what the concern might be (dogs bark mostly out of concern/feeling alert) without needing to bark. Once you get to the door, you can put a leash on your dog, slightly open the door, no more than 1-2cm and let your dog sniff the air and see that nothing to be worried about is there anymore. If your dog barks, repeat steps 1-2 again. If your dog doesn't bark, you can thank them once more.
5. After you've checked things out, guide your dog towards doing something else like an enrichment game or any fun game you both enjoy, to help your dog shake off any uneasy feelings.
Bonus step! 6. Practice checking out the door together as often as possible, indoors, even and ESPECIALLY when your dog isn't barking or caring about what's going on outside. This will help show your dog that it's okay to check out the door, but that there's no need to do it in an agitated and barking manner.