Re: scratching at door

In Reply to: scratching at door
Posted by:  melissa cahill
Posted on:  July 31, 2001 at 09:50:16

: I have a 2 yr old JRT and when I leave he scratches at my door leaving marks. When i get home he knows he did wrong and I show him what he does and tell him no but he still does it. What should I do??

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Hi Melissa,

As much as we all have a tendency to bestow human qualities on our dogs, they don't have them. You might think he knows that he did wrong, but in reality, all he is doing is reacting to your tone of voice and bad vibes, he doesn't have a clue.

Your dog cannot comprehend your anger hours after his unacceptable behavior has happened. Your timing to correct your dog must be done while he is doing the unwanted behavior.

You may have to set up scenarios where you pretend to leave just as you normally do and then once you are out the door listen for when he starts to scratch. Then you give him the correction, a firm NO! There is no need to go into speeches about how disappointed you feel, how betrayed or how angry you are, because anything more than a firm NO will only confuse him. You might want to also get the help of a second person for this exercise.

The key to successful training is to set your dog up for success. Once he knows that scratching at the door is not good you should start to reward him when he does what you want.

I once had an afghan hound that would tear the house apart when we would leave. He managed to destroy an entire couch. We knew this behavior had to stop. We set him up, we left the house, got in the car, actually drove off and parked the car around the block and quietly came home through the back yard where we spied him with his mouth on the cushions of the other couch. We burst through the back entry and gave him his firm correction. We did this several times at varying lengths of time. After that he never bothered another item in the house...because he never knew exactly when we would come home.

Remember the key is to catch them in the act!

Good Luck!