FF150: Greet Expectations: The Art of the Polite Hello!

When we come in the door after an absence- no matter how brief- it is common that our dogs are excited! This excitement often translates to greetings that are a little too intense. Especially if you’ve got your hands full of grocery bags or are otherwise trying to get into the house in a compromised manner, you don’t really need your dog jumping all over you, bumping into your legs or weaving through them, or attempting a mad dash out the door. 

In this exercise, we are going to work on changing our dog’s expectations of what will happen when we come through the door. This takes a little planning and some self control on both the human and the dog’s part! It is common that we may also have gotten into the habit of an enthusiastic greeting- even when we know it doesn’t serve us well in all situations. So, a bit of a routine change is in order for both parties. 

Our plan here is going to involved a delayed greeting -changing the expectation that our dog should urgently and wildly greet us at the door. But between the moments that we come in, and that we greet our dogs, we’ll be giving them a job- reinforcing calm behavior, and gradually altering their emotional state triggered by our arrival.

The first step of this is to teach them the 3 spot game. We’ll do this away from the door first- find a space in your home or yard here you can put the spots about 10 feet apart. 

Before you begin: You will be teaching a cue word that means ‘a cookie will appear on the floor spot’. I say SPOT! Your dog does not need to be doing any particular behavior here- we are just going to be clear about where we are feeding them, and putting the cookie on the floor spot helps provide ‘downward’ thoughts. And, since one cannot jump up while they are leaning down to eat a cookie, we are setting our dogs up for some polite, low-key moments. 

**Tip** Play this game when your dog isn’t feeling max energetic. After a walk, a game, or some other satiating activity is best. 

1. Approach the first spot in the series. Say SPOT! Place the cookie on the first spot. 
2. While your dog is eating, move to the next spot- your dog will catch up, say SPOT and place a cookie on this spot. 
3. Again while your dog is eating, move to the 3rd spot, say SPOT and place a cookie on the 3rd spot. 

Then: 

a)  If your dog is keeping their feet on the ground and appears calm after they’ve eaten the 3rd spot cookie, gently pet them and say hello!

b) If your dog is very animated and excited, work your way backwards, stopping at each spot and saying SPOT with a cookie on it. Move slowly and calmly as you move between spots. Repeat until you’ve gone through the series of spots 3 times, or until they have calmed enough for a brief greeting- whichever comes first. 

c) If your dog does not calm down enough for a greeting, no problem! It can take a while to get the idea that nothing exciting is going to happen.  Provide a food scatter to end the exercise. Try again later and use lower value cookies for your rewards. 

What does CALM look like for the purposes of this exercise? We are looking for your dog to have loose body language, casually standing or moving around, rather than intensely offering behavior, bouncing or pushing for interaction. 

Progressing:

When your dog can receive a calm greeting after getting through the 3 spots in one pass, we are ready to move this to your doorway. 

You’ll want the first spot next to the door- you should be able to easily step through the doorway to get to the first spot. Depending on the layout of your house, your next two spots may extend into other rooms. I’ve used my training space to demonstrate here but if your sports don’t show in one camera angle, show me your first session ith the camera pointed at the first spot. We may adjust from there! 

Note: adding the doorway behavior may increase your dog’s arousal! Don’t be afraid to go back through the spot series a few times if your dog is not calm enough to handle a greeting by spot 3.