If you are having trouble with your dog’s behavior when it comes to barking at the mailman, shredding the mail that is dropped at the door, or even displaying overly aggressive behavior such as chasing down and biting the mailman, then below are a few training tips that can help you change your dog’s behavior:
Leave A Dog Treat For The Mailman
This may sound odd, but this little trick has worked many times for dogs that seemed to get overly angry whenever the mailman comes. When a dog realizes that there is a tasty treat awaiting for them then they tend to become a little friendlier. You can even discuss this with your mailman to let him know what you are doing.
Basically, your goal is to leave a dog biscuit or some other tasty treat taped to the door so that the mailman can put it through the slot with the other pieces of mail. Think about it - now when this strange pile of papers that contain foreign odors comes plummeting through the door, there is a treat that comes along with it for your dog every time. Your dog will actually start to look forward to the mailman coming so long as you keep this up a daily basis.
Move The Furniture Around
Although this is not quite as much a remedy as the dog treat trick above, this little tidbit of advice is great for reducing the amount of barking your dog does whenever the mailman approaches. Dogs can actually hear a person approach way before they can visually see them. That is when the loud barking typically begins. So this furniture trick will help him stay a little bit more calm and reduce the amount of barking.
Simply move around a chair or a side table and place it in front of the window or any other area in which your dog can usually see a person approaching. For example, when the mailman comes to my house, my dog can first see him approaching the sidewalk through the side window and then again near the main window which is located next to my door. I moved a chair in front of both Windows so that he was distracted by the object and did not put as much emphasis on seeing the mailman.
This little trick works great and seems to calm most dogs to a point so that their barking never reaches those high levels which makes a person crazy, especially if you have a very loud Chihuahua like I do! Although your dog will still bark when he senses the mailman coming, it will not last that long due to diverting his attention with the moved furniture.
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