Sweet Little
Why does my sweet little Chi-pom turn into a Tasmanian Devil when people come over or leave the house?
She is very sweet otherwise. Even when my kids come and go she snarls, snips and even bites at times. Why? What do I do about it?
Since your sweet little girl cannot speak English she will not be able to tell us 'why' she feels uncomfortable about peoples' entrances and exits. I assume once the people are inside she is friendly and sweet? If not, then she is fearful of strangers and it is a much larger problem.
If your problem simply centers around the entrance/exit of your home, then all we need to do is change the way she feels about those events. Teach her to go to a spot (her bed or mat) which should be set in a location that is away from the door, but where she can still see the doorway.
Once she is good at going to her spot on command, then have someone knock/ring the doorbell (whatever usually happens when someone comes over) and before they actually enter, tell your pup to go to her spot and give her treats. Continue to treat her as the person enters. First practice with familiar people (friends and family that she knows well) before making it more difficult with strangers. Have the person come all the way in (away from doorway) and sit down before releasing your pup to go greet them (provided that she is friendly once they are in). Have the visitor give her treats a couple treats as well. Then chat with the visitor for a minute before asking your pup to go to her spot again for the visitor's departure. You should be feeding your pup treats the whole time the visitor is departing. Repeat them process over and over and over again with as many people as possible until you see her automatically run to her spot when she hears someone at the door and also when people are leaving.
The whole idea here is that we are changing her current negative association with people entering/exiting with a new behavior (going to her spot and therefore not biting) and a positive association - treats. So we will be communicating to her that when people enter and exit the house she gets wonderful fabulous treats. Pretty soon she will WANT people to enter and exit because that is the only time she gets her wonderful, fabulous treats.
I would only use something highly valuable and tasty like chicken, hotdogs, bacon bits etc (very tiny pieces) and only use them for this exercise. Using them in other contexts will lower their value and pairing with peoples' entrances/exits.
If she is also fearful and aggressive of people in general even when they are in the house, then this protocol while still useful for you is not the final solution and I suggest contacting a professional behaviorist in your area that uses positive reinforcement training to help you out.
I must warn you that treating fear or aggression with punishment will only make it worse so do NOT correct or hit her for this behavior. If you do, all you are doing is punishing out her warning signals without changing the way she feels about the events themselves. She is already trying to show you that she is uncomfortable with the entrance/exit of people with barking/growling/snarling. These are all initial warning cues that dogs give. If you punish her, all she will learn is that these warning cues don't work (she will still be uncomfortable with people entering/exiting) and eventually she will have to increase her warning signals to snaps and bites since her owner and guardian is not able to protect her from whatever she is uncomfortable with, she will have to resort to doing it herself. Not only that, but you'll probably end up with a handshy dog.
Our dogs give us tons of signals with their body language all the time. We expect them to learn 'english' and obey our commands but never take the time to learn to read their body language and what they might be telling us. This is not to say that we do whatever they want us to do for them, but if we can see that they are telling us that they are uncomfortable or stressed, we can help them learn to be more comfortable with their triggers. Small dogs are often more reactive to things because they are so small and therefore everything in the world is huge and potentially scary. That is why early and continuing socialization is so important for all dogs, especially the little ones.
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