BH185: Overgreeters Anonymous

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration will begin at 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

Enrollment limits: Gold: 12 students, Silver: 25 students, Bronze: unlimited.  

Gold Level includes access to all course materials and the ability to post questions and videos to the course forums.  Students will receive instructor feedback on written and video assignments. 

Silver Level includes access to all course materials and the ability to participate in the discussion forum.  Students may ask GENERAL questions about course materials and may submit two, one-minute videos for instructor feedback.  Any questions specific to your dog MUST be accompanied by a video. 

Bronze Level includes access to all course materials and the ability to read all questions and answers posted in the class forums.  Students will not post questions or submit written or video assignments. 

For more details, refund policies, and answers to commonly asked questions see our FAQ page.

Syllabus

Pre-Class-

Management

Reward Markers

Week 1-

The stranger danger to people response, the overexcited with people response, the stranger danger to dogs response and the overexcited with dogs response

Choosing and teaching your alternative behavior for greeting people

Body language, thresholds and trigger stacking

Foundation skills

Week 2-

Jumping on people who live with the dog- teaching an alternative greeting

Look and dismiss- people and dogs- surprises and more

Couch greeting and doorway greeting game

Listen to that- Sounds of arrival

Stay for exam games- new sensations

Jumping on people who live with the dog- adding more excitement

Week 3-

Greeting new people games

Look and dismiss- people and dogs

Stranger danger with new people and leaping with excitement for friends

Listen to that- Doorbells and knocking

Doorway greeting with maximum excitement and good choices

Stay for exam games- getting closer

Week 4-

Greeting people games- adding delays between rewards

Paws up- adding stimulus control

Desensitization with people and dogs

Greeting games with new visitors petting and excitement

Doorbell games- putting it all together

Surprise game- dog or person surprise

Stay for exam games- the approach

Go to mat with invisible visitor

Week 5-

Greeting games with a really excited person

Polite greetings- adding handler distance

Doorbell games- putting it together

Walk by neutral dog vs barking/excited dog

The stranger danger dog- hosting parties and overnight guests

The overgreeter to people dog- parties and get togethers

Stay for exam games- the examination

Stay on the mat for people entering the house

Week 6-

Other skills with dog and people distractions

Greeting games- weaning off rewards

Greeting games- handler distance and dog at a distance

Surprise dog! Off leash surprise with another dog

The overgreeter to other dogs dog- trial preparation games

The stranger danger to other dogs dog- trial preparation games

Stay for exam games- reliability tests

Prerequisites & Supplies

We will need access to a person that the dog gets really excited about a few times a week. This can be you, a family member, or you can go to a park or coffee shop and work around the general public.

We will also need access to dogs that the dog gets over-excited about. They can be family member's dogs or dogs being walked in the neighborhood. We can go to public places such as a dog club or near the path to a dog park for practice sessions. 

For the doorbell games, you can choose to do that game with your dog in a stay instead of having the dog just be nearby. It works best for your dog to already have a good understanding of stay prior to working with stays with people as distractions for our overgreeter dogs. We will also discuss stand stays for exam for those dogs who have an understanding of stays already.

Sample Lecture

Week 1: Lecture 4: Cookie Scatter Game

As part of our management, we are going to use the cookie scatter game. Having good handler mechanics are really helpful in this game.

When we are trying to pair one stimuli with a reward, it is incredibly important that reaching for the reward occurs after the learner sees the stimuli.

The sequence of events should be:

• Person sees distraction
• Dog sees person or dog
• Handler says a verbal cue such as "cookie search" or "get it, get it, get it"
• Handler reaches for the rewards

Cookie scatter game

The goal here is that the dog eats continuously and that you are dropping more treats before the last treat is eaten.

When to use the cookie scatter game:

This is a great game to use when the dog is under threshold and the distraction isn't moving towards you.

Look and Dismiss with Cookie Scatter

When we want to add distractions to the cookie scatter game, I find that it's really helpful for the dogs to be capable of this version of the game prior to adding people or dog distractions. I used a giant piece of ham for the distraction here. You could also use any toy or food distraction that's really enticing to the dog.

The sequence of events should be:

• Dog looks at distraction
• Dog looks away from distraction
• Handler says a verbal cue such as "cookie search" or "get it, get it, get it"
• Handler reaches for the rewards
• Handler scatters rewards on the ground
• Dog looks at distraction again

When to use the look and dismiss cookie scatter game:

This is a great game to use when the dog is under threshold, the distraction isn't moving towards you and the dog isn't showing any signs of stress. It's great for the end of a visit with people once the dog has begun to calm down or when dogs are walking away from you. 

The Cookie Scatter Game is a form of jackpotting. When we incorporate that with the look and dismiss game, it's important to choose moments that the dog made a really great choice to jackpot. What are some choices that your dog might make that would be worthy of a jackpot of rewards? 

Cookies in a fist game

We would like our dogs to make good choices with other people and greet them appropriately. We are going to ask our friends to use this game to help our dogs make good choices with them. First, we are going to teach our dogs the game.

Cookies in a fist game- 1 person

My fist is closed with one treat in it and I have several treats in my opposite hand. When my puppy accidentally backs away from my closed fist, I say my reward word and deliver the treat from the opposite hand. The key to this game is to that your arm with the treat in it is like a tree. It doesn't move. The more it moves the more dogs typically think bumping it will work. If you are getting scratched up, then you can practice this with the treats in a coffee mug or wear gloves. Repeat this step until the dog isn't touching your fist with their nose between reward deliveries.

The goal of this game is for the dog to choose on their own without any commands to back away from the food. This will greatly help us in the future because we are teaching the dog to choose to move away from the new person on their own.

I don't suggest starting this exercise with the dog in any particular position. The dog can walk around during this first step. The goal is that the dog learns that moving their nose away from the treats is the way to earn the treats. 

Here is my puppy learning this game.

Cookies in a fist game with 1 person

Now that the dog has a bit of an idea that we want them to move away from treats being held in a fist, we can do this with new people. This game is not something that I want you to play when you are the person that the dog is greeting (use your cookie scatter for that instead). It is a two person game. The helper is going to hold lots and lots of really high value treats in their fist. They are never going to give those treats to the dog. The helper is also going to avoid looking at the dog's face. They can also block the dog's eyes so the dog cannot look at their face. We want to prevent the jumping. The moment that the dog's nose comes away from the person's fist, you will reward the dog. You can either scatter treats on the ground or you can say "yes" if the dog has been conditioned to come to you to receive the reward with that reward marker. Then send the dog back to go say hi to the person. I use "go say hi". You can also say any release word. We can use a phrase here that the dog doesn't know because it is really likely that the dog will go to the person if the handler just stops rewarding the dog.

3-1: Greeting People

People Approaching the dog directly

The last two weeks, we have focused on letting the dog greet only people who could help us practice our games and we worked on the L&D game with the general public at a distance. This week, we are going to allow greetings for the dogs who can make good choices with people.

This game can be done using rapid fire treat (management) or avoiding the situation if the dog can’t handle it (management). Extra isn’t ready to say hi to people without going into hyperarousal especially if they are approaching him. He does better when he is approaching them. If people try to approach him, we can use the phrase “no, he is working on ignoring people”.

This game can also be done with L&D step 1, step 2, step 3 or step 4. Here with both dogs, we are rewarding L&D step 3.

Talent greets a person. As Laurie approaches, Talent looks back at me (L&D step 3) which I reward generously. She oftentimes chooses to move away from the person to calm herself down and she sits and looks at me often. I reward all of those choices generously. I also reward generously as she is being petted by the person without jumping. As she progresses, I will choose to be more selective with when I reward and she will only get rewards for actually interacting with the person.

People Petting the Dog

We haven’t really worked on other people petting the dog until now. We focused a lot on the dog choosing to calm themselves down by looking away from the person. Now, we are going to work on petting directly.

The more distance that the handler is away from the person who is greeting the dog, the more challenging it is.

This game can be done using rapid fire treat (preventing undesired behavior), avoiding the situation if the dog can’t handle it (management), L&D step 1, step 2, step 3 or step 4. If the dog can’t successfully remain calm when a person approaches then it’s best to avoid petting for now.

Here, I am rewarding L&D step 3 when she chooses not to jump for 2 seconds of petting. When I first started this game with her, we did ½ a second of petting between rewards. Once she reached an 80% success rate, then we went to 1 second between rewards. I could make this more challenging by going up to 3, 4 or 5 seconds between rewards. Once we get to 5 seconds of petting between rewards then we can easily go to 10 seconds and then we don’t really need the rewards any longer.

Stay on your bed when people enter the house

Difficulty Level 1:

The handler goes through all the steps without a visitor at the door

Difficulty Level 2: 

The handler goes through all the steps with a visitor after they already greeted the dogs (the person came in and said hello, then went out and this game was practiced). 

Difficulty Level 3: 

The handler goes through all the steps with a visitor who has just arrived at the door. 

This week, we are going to practice difficulty level 2. Let the dog greet the visitor briefly then ask the visitor to help you practice your stays. Ask them ahead of time to go back outside the door if the dog jumps or if the dog leaves their stay without you saying your release cue (tell the visitor what cue that is). 

Here is the sequence we are aiming for: 

• Visitor knocks on door or rings doorbell. Handler says something like "just a second"
• Handler sends dogs to a location
• Handler rewards dogs for going to the location
• Handler opens the door a crack, visitor says "hi" and handler says something like "hi, wait right there" 
• Handler rewards dogs for remaining on their beds
• Handler opens the door a bit more and says "how are you?" Visitor responds. Handler says "wait right there" 
• Handler rewards dogs for remaining on their beds
• Handler invites the visitor inside and the visitor opens and closes the door behind them. The handler rewards the dogs throughout for staying. If the dogs leave their stay without being cued then the visitor goes back outside to try it again. 
• Handler rewards dogs for remaining on their beds
• Handler releases the dogs

It's really helpful to add all of these steps because we are able to reward the dog abundantly for hearing the visitor's voice and staying, seeing the visitor and staying, having the person come inside and staying. The most common struggle that people have with this is that they choose to have their dog stay in a location that puts the dog too close to the visitor once the visitor is inside or they put the dog in a stay in a location that the dog feels like they are going to get stepped on so the dog breaks their stay. Aim for cueing the dog to stay in a spot that is at least 4 feet from the door preferably to the side of the door and that will be more than 4 feet from where the visitor will be standing when they come in the door.  

Testimonials

A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...

I cannot say enough about how much attention Mariah gave to us at Silver. She kept us moving along, making progress and we got great advice. It was the motivation that I needed to really work through the issues with my dog.           

Wonderful class! Samwise and I are still catching up because life's been a little crazy around here, but we've already been putting several of the techniques into practice and they've helped a ton! Can't wait to continue implementing more of the strategies we've learned, especially as the holiday season approaches and our "Overgreeter" will have more guests! :)         

Overgreeters Anonymous was just what we needed, and at just the right time. My dog is a young Labrador Retriever who thinks every person and every dog she sees is her potential new best friend. She would lunge and drag me towards people and dogs in an effort to meet them and our walks were sometimes not very much fun (for me, anyway). With the skills we have learned in this class, she is now greeting new people politely and we have made huge strides forward in how she behaves when she encounters other dogs. We still have work to do (and she still has a lot of maturing to do, she's still basically just a puppy) but I am confident that as we apply these skills and refine them, she will be great! Mariah was an awesome instructor, very positive and patient. She always found something good to say, even when I felt like I posted a video that was full of nothing but terrible moments, and she always gave us something to work towards. I will definitely take more classes with her in the future.           

Mariah gave great feedback in our silver thread as well as encouragement when things went well and went we had bumps. I felt very much encouraged to keep working and making progress.       

I can't even tell you how glad I am that we took this course, and especially that we did it at Gold. Having the feedback from Mariah, the accountability to make sure we practiced the skills and applied them in real life situations was huge for us and paid off in a big way.