Visitors Today?

Buddy had some visitors today. And they rang the doorbell. He proceeded to bark and push to greet them. So, we skipped the first session of a new puppy class to work on desensitizing Buddy to the doorbell and getting him to ignore exercise equipment.

We rang the bell, Buddy barked, we told him "No" and offered praise when he did not bark. Repeated this with some success. Then we put the pinch collar on and rang the bell, Buddy barked and we corrected him or offered praise. This was more effective. Then, we continued to ring the bell using correction and the best positive reinforcement, kibble. We conducted two additional sessions - he needs more work.

We don't want to repeat Pavlov's experiment, so we stopped the food. He was drooling when we were using the food as reinforcement, we don't want him drooling every time the door bell rings or he hears a bell on television.