Trainers' Tip: Doorways

By Elizabeth Morgan, Trainer

One of the first things most people notice about assistance dogs is that they are usually required to sit at doorways.  This is also a good practice for pet dogs. 

Many people believe that the dogs are required to wait at doorways as a submissive gesture: the “pack leader” always walks through first, so if we humans go first this solidifies the dog's place in the “pack.”  This is not the reasoning behind THSD's dogs sitting at doorways.

Trainer Elizabeth Morgan with new Service Dog team Hunter Adkins & Rolex

Here, the trainers use a behavior-consequences model of training.  Dogs learn whether or not to repeat a behavior based on the consequences of that behavior.  If they do a behavior and good things happen as a result, they will repeat the behavior.  In the beginning stages of training, when we teach dogs the basic behaviors, they will get a treat reward whenever they do the desired behavior.  When they sit, they get a treat.  Since they usually really enjoy the treats, they will repeat the behavior, and in the future they will be more likely to perform a sit. 

Once the dogs learn the behavior, it is not necessary to continue giving a treat every time they do it in order to make the behavior stronger.  It IS important to reward the dogs for the behavior, so at this point in training, we use other things the dogs like as a reward.  We might use praise, petting, toys, going for a walk, and yes, even going through a doorway.

Going through a doorway is very rewarding for most dogs.  Doorways leading outside mean that they can go out and run, look at birds, smell the fresh air, etc.  Doorways leading to other rooms mean that they can go explore another part of the building, rooms which may contain people who will give them attention, toys to play with, a soft bed to lie on, etc.  Since walking through a doorway is so rewarding to dogs, we want them to earn that reward by doing a desired behavior before they get to go through; so going through the doorway becomes the reward for the dogs performing a sit. 

Most dogs also like to run through doorways as fast as possible.  When the door to the backyard opens, the dog shoots through like a cannonball.  This is not a desired behavior in most households.  Doing this behavior could result in the dog getting injured (if he runs out into the street), or a human getting injured (if the dog knocks someone down on the way out the door).  The way that we solve many undesirable behaviors like this one is to ask the dog to perform an incompatible behavior.  An incompatible behavior can be any behavior that the dog does which makes it impossible to do the undesirable behavior.  So, in this case, we ask the dog to sit at the door, because the sit is incompatible with barging out the door.  Eventually, with a lot of practice, the dog will learn that he will always have to sit at the door and that barging out is not an option, and he will stop doing that behavior!