Several weeks ago, I gave a presentation at my local library branch: Dogs—Living Well with Your Best Friend. For an hour before the class started, I was available to answer questions. I got some good ones! Today, I’ll tell you about Iggy the Shar-Pei and his interesting but annoying habit of barking at the sound of doorbells . . . on TV!
Dog Barks at Doorbells on TV
How did a dog learn to bark at doorbells on television? When Iggy was a younger dog, he lived in a home where the doorbell worked. There he learned that the sound of the doorbell predicted excitement at the door—often, visiting humans, which was usually a very good experience for him. Packages . . . or maybe a pizza? When he was with humans in his home, the sound of the bell caused them to get up from what they were doing and hustle to find out what or who was at the door. When no humans were home, Iggy took on that responsibility himself. It was instinctive. In Iggy’s doggy mind, his barking was effective. When he was home alone, his barking made the bell-ringing “intruders” go away.
Fast-forward to now, when Iggy lives in a home where the doorbell doesn’t work.
Iggy barks at doorbells on TV.
I elicited this information from his owner when I asked her to tell me about one of his unusual behaviors (since we didn’t have time to deal with all of them). I hoped that, with some basic information about how she could eliminate this particular behavior, his owner would be able to extrapolate to work on Iggy’s other annoying behaviors. She’d indicated there were many!
Iggy’s barking at doorbells on TV is not a huge problem for his owner. I’m guessing there are no sleeping babies or irate neighbors involved—it’s just a personal quirk of his human. It bothers her. And it’s not a “preferred activity” of the dog. In other words, take away barking at doorbells on TV from Iggy and his quality of life would not be diminished. In fact, his quality of life might be improved.
We can’t know what Iggy “thinks” about doorbells on TV, but we do know that the behavior of barking at them must be rewarding to Iggy in some way, or it wouldn’t continue. It’s possible that barking, by increasing the endorphins in his system, relieves some stress Iggy feels—stress cued by a doorbell noise. To make the behavior diminish and eventually disappear, we must change Iggy’s “mind” about that reaction: we must find a way to change his reaction.
We want Iggy to not bark when he hears a doorbell on TV.
Photo by Julia Seiter
We need to come up with something for Iggy to do instead of barking.
I ask his owner if Iggy likes food. That’s an easy answer: Iggy does!
If Iggy weren’t interested in treats, we could find something more rewarding. But since he is, I suggested that eating treats would certainly be a great alternative behavior to barking at doorbells on TV. Iggy can be offered treats right there in the living room where the TV is, with his human sitting in a comfortable chair. No need to “suit up” to go outside for a fetch reward or a walk; no special equipment required, and very little energy. I think most humans can manage to feed treats to a dog even after a long, exhausting day at work. I was glad that Iggy’s owner agreed.
(I would advise any dog owner to moderate the amount of food fed as meals to any dog being given treats for training. Adding treats to a dog’s daily intake without subtracting food fed as meals is a formula for making a dog fat, and a fat dog has a much harder time being healthy than a dog who is at an appropriate weight. Ask your veterinarian what an appropriate weight is for your dog!)
Iggy’s owner was feeling positive about helping Iggy to switch from barking at doorbells on TV to not-barking at doorbells on TV because he was eating treats. I guess I could have stopped there. But I had a further suggestion, one that falls into the category of training technology. I asked, and got the answer I was hoping for: Iggy’s human already owns an amazing high-tech gadget that’s going to make training Iggy to not-bark at doorbells on TV very much easier.
Iggy’s human owns a smart phone.
Some years ago, I trained hearing dogs. At that time, technology was considerably more old-school. We used remote controls hooked up to unconnected doorbells or telephones to “ring” those devices when we needed them while training the dogs. Obviously, we needed control over when and where those noises were heard. Our simple remote setup did the trick inexpensively.
I mention this because I was certainly not going to leave Iggy’s owner sitting in front of her TV every night waiting for a doorbell to ring on a show she was watching! Instead, I suggested that she could have full control over a doorbell-like sound—including when, where, and how loudly it occurred—by finding doorbell sound effects on her smart phone and making those sounds play whenever she pressed a button. I think she liked that idea a lot!
It’s possible that Iggy wouldn’t respond to the doorbell sound effects from a phone in the same way he responds to the doorbell sounds on TV, of course. In that case, his owner might come up with a lower-tech device like our hearing dog program’s remote controls hooked up to “fake” doorbells. Or she could try a CD of doorbell sound effects cued up and replayed as needed. But I guessed that, since Iggy had transferred his reaction from a real doorbell in his old home to doorbells on TV in his new home (where the real doorbell didn’t work), he was likely to respond to the sound from the phone, too.
With Iggy relaxed and empty—before a meal, after a potty—his owner could sit comfortably in front of her TV (on, but muted or at very low volume), “ring” the doorbell on her phone, and offer Iggy treats. I left it up to her to decide what sort of food reward would be Iggy’s highest preference. Clearly, in the initial stages of training, food rewards should be of the most enticing kind. Iggy should be left with no alternative. In his doggy mind, the food rewards should be the only choice.
So what happened? Iggy ate the treats! He’s eating treats, not barking at the doorbell on the phone!
Iggy’s human will continue his training in this pleasant manner over time, in short sessions several times every day. She will “ring the bell” and offer Iggy irresistible treats so that he is eating them instead of barking. She could start out with the sound set low, then eventually increase the volume. She could move to other locations, first in the same room, then elsewhere in the home. She could try various doorbell sound effects, since he’s reacted to several different sounds by barking. She will learn to quit while she’s ahead, to stop while Iggy is wanting more. She will look for this reaction: on hearing the doorbell sound, instead of barking, Iggy will turn to his owner expecting treat delivery.
When Iggy reaches that stage in his training, I hope his owner remembers not to slack off on the rewards. Should a doorbell ring on TV and Iggy not bark, his owner had better reward him, pronto. If she’s without treats for the moment, give him a good face-scritching (another of his preferred rewards) and run to the kitchen for the cheese!
I’m looking forward to a full report from Iggy’s owner on how his “don’t bark at doorbells on TV” training is going. I very much want to hear that working on eliminating this one small annoyance has been turned into a positive learning experience for dog and owner. I wish them both complete success!
