Charging the door

Question
We have a Sheltie we found as a stray(yes a stray) 6 years ago. He is a approximately 6-7 year old neutered male.  We have 2 children and live in a neighborhood with lots of children.  In the last few years our Sheltie has become more aggressive when someone walks by the house, approaches the house or rings the doorbell.  He immediatley starts non stop barking and charges the door.  Sometimes he is able to charge the door hard enough he pushes it open.  We have had two recent episodes where he pushes the door open and "nips" at whoever is standing there.  Our vet advised us to keep a kennel near the front door and place him in the kennel when the doorbell rings, but this procedure has seemed to only make his aggressive behavior worse. We love our dog, but this behavior is making it very hard to be patient and is becoming nearly impossible to control.  This is becoming a very scary situation for us since we have children at our door much of the time.  If you have any advice you can offer we would appreciate it very much.  Thank you  Todd and Jenny


Answer
Jenny and Todd,

Will Shelties spaz out when someone comes to the door?  Sure.  Should they?  Looking at the breed origins most certainly they will do this. The question I have is: when did this start?  You said that he has developed a higher aggression toward the front door approach.  Was there a specific event that precipitated this?  Usually if a Sheltie doesn't go ballistic over something in the first two years it takes some kind of trauma to make that reaction change.

Back to the question of control.  This is a difficult task because you are directly contradicting the perceived instinct that your dog was bred for: protection against outside threat.

Right now what I have for you is: to start locking your door so it can't be bumped open.  (Sorry, I have to say what may sound obvious!)

The less obvious is to get very intensively into obedience basics.  If you have not ever done this, one of you needs to take your pup to the local pet supply store for several class sessions.  You are looking to work look, sit, stay, heel and halt commands.  A very positive understanding of those commands will help you control your Sheltie when he goes into "herd protection mode".

Halt is extremely effective as it is rarely used yet strongly trained.

If the children are home and likely to have visitors you may need to crate or umbilical leash (or house leash) until the training is working.  By umbilical/house leash I mean literally wear the dog on a leash attached to an adult.

I hope these answers provide a solution!!!

Dave