How To Manage Your Dog When You Have House Guests

dog house guests
dog house guests
photo credit Samson Katt via pexels.com

You may end up inviting guests to your house, but your dog could cause some issues. If you face this situation, you need to prepare your dog for the guests and do your best to manage his or her behavior. If you want some help with managing your dog, you can follow these tips to ensure your guests enjoy their visit to your house.

Have a Dog Crate

Depending on how hyper your dog gets, he or she may need to stay in a dog crate when your guests visit. If you have an aggressive dog when he or she sees someone new, The Pampered Pup highly suggests getting a heavy-duty dog crate to help you. Getting one will allow you to place your dog inside of it without worrying about any dog escape plan or crate damage when he begins to act up.

If your dog starts to bark at guests or tries to bite them, the crate will save you from lots of trouble. That way, your dog won’t run around, and your guests will feel safer if they fear dogs. Make sure you purchase a good crate that provides enough space for your dog, so he or she doesn’t become uncomfortable.

Focus on Training

If you want to prevent your dog from causing problems while your house guests visit, you should focus on training your dog. If you can help your dog learn how to behave, you will avoid these problems in the first place. This means you should figure out how to train your dog and start working on it before you have guests over.

Training your dog will include teaching him or her commands to follow. For example, you can tell your dog to sit if he or she starts to misbehave. Once you train your dog to follow your commands, you should bring a friend over and see if your dog listens while your friend is there. From there, you can continue training and preparing your dog for guests by bringing more people over.

Get an Anti-Barking Collar

While some dogs may act up, others will start to bark when people come over. While it’s normal for dogs to bark for a bit when new people come to the house, your dog shouldn’t bark at them for extended periods of time. If your furry friend struggles with this, you should get him or her an anti-barking collar.

Anti-barking collars will discourage dogs from barking. Depending on the type you purchase, it can vibrate to stop your dog, play an irritating noise or shock him or her. Some of them may play beeping noises to discourage your dog from barking. Either way, if your dog struggles with barking at guests, an anti-barking collar might be a necessary purchase.

Let Your Dog Sniff Guests

Sometimes, dogs need to get to know guests before they will behave. See how your dog behaves after he or she smells a guest, so you can understand if your dog how your dog will act around them. For example, some dogs will bark at people, but if they have the opportunity to sniff and get to know those people, the dogs will start to behave after a bit.

Find out if your dog reacts well to people after they sniff the guests. Depending on how your dog reacts, he or she could behave well once your furry friend understands who visited your home. However, make sure your dog tends to behave well if you plan to take this approach since you don’t want an aggressive dog to unexpectedly bite someone.

Use a Baby Gate

If you want to contain your dog to a specific part of the house, you could set up a baby gate. Baby gates work well since you can easily put them up and take them down while placing them in front of a door. That way, your dog will be in the room where you put the baby gate, so he or she won’t interrupt the house guests or cause problems.

On top of that, if your guests plan to stay in one room, you can put the baby gate in front of the doorway. Doing this will allow your dog to go through the rest of the house without causing any problems for your guests. This means baby gates work well since they provide some solid flexibility when it comes to separating your guests from your dog.

Reward Your Dog for Good Behavior

Dogs respond best to positive reinforcement, so you should reward your dog when he or she responds well to house guests. For example, if your dog barks at house guests, don’t give him or her anything. If your dog goes a few minutes without barking or getting upset at people, you can feed him or her a treat.

Keep rewarding your dog whenever he or she behaves well since dogs respond to positive reinforcement. As you continue to do this, your dog will pick up on positive behaviors and continue to perform them. Make sure you continue this until it becomes regular behavior for your dog, so he or she will learn how to act around house guests.

Conclusion

Managing your dog with house guests over can pose some difficulties, but following these steps will make things easier for you. Each one will help you keep your dog under control, make your guests feel comfortable and address any potential problems. Feel free to apply these tips, use them as much as possible and keep your guests safe.