Preparing Your Dog for Christmas Before Christmas Actually Arrives

Every year, Christmas seems to arrive rather suddenly.

Obviously it doesn’t. We all know when it’s coming. But December still has a habit of becoming a rush of shopping, decorating, visiting, cooking and trying to squeeze several weeks’ worth of socialising into a handful of days.

For our dogs, the change can be even more noticeable. One week the house looks much as it always does; the next, somebody has put a tree in the corner of the living room, moved some of the furniture, covered everything in lights and decorations and started bringing strange-smelling bags and parcels through the front door. Add visitors, children, food, altered routines and a generally higher level of activity and it is not particularly surprising if some dogs find the whole thing exciting, confusing or occasionally rather overwhelming.

Sometimes that shows itself in obvious ways: barking at the door, jumping up at guests, stealing food, pestering people or simply being unable to settle. With other dogs it can be less dramatic. They may become restless, clingy, withdrawn or just seem slightly out of sorts.

None of this means that Christmas needs to become a military operation organised around the dog. It does, however, mean that if we already know December is going to look quite different from October and November, there is some value in preparing for it rather than waiting until all those changes arrive at once.

The goal is not a perfectly behaved Christmas dog. It is simply a dog that has a better idea of what is expected of them, and a household that has thought in advance about how to make things easier.

Start with Christmas Day and work backwards

Rather than asking yourself what sort of “Christmas training” you should be doing, it is probably more useful to imagine what Christmas Day will actually look like in your house.

When the doorbell rings and relatives arrive, where would you ideally like the dog to be? If you are serving lunch and people are moving backwards and forwards between the kitchen and dining room, what would make that easier? If there are children sitting on the floor opening presents, do you want the dog moving freely amongst them, or would everybody be more relaxed if the dog could settle somewhere nearby?

Perhaps your dog loves visitors, but their idea of a welcome involves launching themselves enthusiastically at anyone who comes through the door. Perhaps they are perfectly sociable once people are inside but find the arrival itself difficult. Or perhaps they do not particularly want to interact with unfamiliar visitors at all.

There is no single right answer here because Christmas looks different in every house and every dog brings a different set of strengths and weaknesses with them.

What matters is having a reasonable idea of what you would like the dog to do before you start trying to teach it.

Once you know that, the training tends to become much clearer.

Practise the boring things

The behaviours that make the biggest difference at Christmas are rarely the impressive ones.

Most of the time, what helps is being able to send the dog to a bed and have them remain there for a while; asking them to wait rather than barging through a doorway; getting a reliable response to “leave it”; or simply having a dog that can settle while people move around the room without feeling the need to follow everybody.

These are not particularly glamorous exercises, but they are useful ones.

The important thing is not to assume that because your dog can perform one of these behaviours in an easy situation, they can automatically do it in a difficult one.

Take place training as an example. If your dog can lie on a bed for thirty seconds while you stand beside them, that is a good starting point. It is not the same exercise as remaining there for twenty minutes while six people are eating lunch, somebody is walking in and out of the kitchen and a child is crawling around on the floor.

This is where the familiar three Ds - distance, duration and distraction - become useful. If you increase all three at once, most dogs will struggle. Build them gradually and you give the dog a much better chance of understanding what you want.

So, if one of your goals is for your dog to settle on a bed while people eat, start with an ordinary meal. Then practise while somebody else moves around the room. Later, perhaps do the same thing when a visitor is present. By the time Christmas arrives, you are no longer asking the dog to perform a completely new behaviour in one of the busiest environments they have experienced all year.

The same principle applies elsewhere. Training is generally easier when the dog has learned the job before you desperately need them to do it.

The Christmas tree does not have to arrive fully formed

The Christmas tree is a good example of something humans understand immediately but dogs do not.

We know what it is, why it has appeared and that it will probably disappear again sometime in January. From the dog’s point of view, somebody has brought a large and possibly strange-smelling object into a familiar room, moved some furniture around to accommodate it and then covered the thing in dangling objects and flashing lights.

Some dogs will take absolutely no notice of it. Others will think it is the most interesting development of the year.

Young dogs in particular may find low-hanging decorations rather difficult to resist. A shiny bauble moves when they touch it, rolls across the floor when it falls and may make an interesting noise when chased under the sofa. From their perspective, that looks remarkably like a toy.

This is why I often think it makes sense to introduce the tree in stages rather than completing the entire transformation of the room in one afternoon.

If you have a real tree, you might bring it into the house and leave it undecorated for a while. Let the dog notice it, investigate it appropriately and discover that, actually, nothing terribly exciting happens around it. Lights can be added later, followed by decorations once the tree itself has lost some of its novelty.

You do not need to turn this into a fortnight-long desensitisation programme. Even spreading the process over a few days can make the change feel rather less dramatic.

It also gives you the opportunity to see what your dog is likely to do before you have covered the lower branches in fragile decorations.

If you know you have a dog that is likely to investigate everything with their mouth, make the early stages easier for them. Put tempting or valuable decorations higher up. Supervise access. Use a barrier if that is the simplest option. There is very little value in repeatedly telling the dog off for stealing baubles when we could have made the situation much clearer from the outset.

There is another Christmas tree problem which gets mentioned rather less often: scent marking.

A real tree smells of the outdoors, and for some dogs - particularly males that already have a tendency to mark - bringing something that smells distinctly outside into the living room can create a little confusion about whether the usual indoor rules still apply.

Again, management is usually more helpful than outrage.

If you think this may be an issue, keep an eye on the dog while the tree is new, interrupt any obvious attempt to mark and make sure they have plenty of normal opportunities to toilet outside. Once the tree has become part of the furniture, the temptation often reduces considerably.

The aim with all of this is not to make the tree into a major training event. In fact, it is almost the opposite. We want the dog to decide that the strange new object in the corner is really rather boring.

Decide what happens when the doorbell rings

For many dogs, Christmas does not become exciting when the turkey comes out of the oven. It becomes exciting every time somebody knocks on the door.

Visitors arrive carrying bags. People talk loudly in the hallway. Coats come off. Somebody bends down to greet the dog. Someone else tells them to get down. Another person starts repeating the dog’s name in an increasingly hopeful tone.

It can become quite a lot, quite quickly.

If your dog already gets overexcited when visitors arrive, Christmas is unlikely to magically improve their manners. It is worth deciding in advance what you would like that arrival sequence to look like.

For some dogs, that might mean going to place while somebody comes through the door. For others, it may be easier simply to have them behind a baby gate or in another room while everybody gets inside and the initial excitement settles down.

Once people are in, coats are off and the hallway is no longer full of movement, you can decide whether a greeting is appropriate.

It is also worth remembering that dogs do not have to greet every person who enters the house.

We sometimes create problems by assuming that interaction is compulsory. A dog that finds unfamiliar people difficult may be far more comfortable being given some space while visitors settle in. Equally, a dog that adores people but struggles to contain themselves may benefit from delaying the greeting until everybody is calmer.

Whatever system you choose, practise it before Christmas.

You do not need to stage a fake full family gathering. Ask one cooperative friend to knock on the door and work through the routine you want to use. Send the dog to their bed, open the door, let the person come inside and then release the dog when you are ready.

What you are really teaching is a pattern, and patterns become easier when they are familiar.

Christmas involves a surprising amount of movement

One thing people do not always consider is how much more movement there tends to be in a house over Christmas.

People are getting up and sitting down. Somebody is going to answer the door. Children are moving between rooms. Food is being carried from kitchen to table. Presents are appearing and disappearing. People arrive at different times and leave again.

For a dog that already likes to follow everybody around, become involved in every activity or generally supervise the household, this can be quite tiring.

It can also make the day harder for everybody else.

The dog follows somebody into the kitchen. Then somebody else gets up, so the dog follows them instead. A shopping bag appears, which obviously needs investigating. A child drops something. Somebody carries a plate across the room. Suddenly the dog has spent an hour responding to every bit of movement around them.

This is another reason why I put so much value on a solid place command.

It gives the dog a simple answer to the question of what they should be doing while everybody else is busy.

You can practise this long before Christmas. Put the dog on their bed while you tidy the room. Walk backwards and forwards. Open cupboards. Carry things around. Sit down, then get up again. Let the dog learn that people moving around does not always require them to move too.

It sounds simple, but being able to switch off while life happens around them is one of the most useful skills a dog can have.

Food matters, but probably not in the way you think

By the time December arrives, there will be no shortage of articles reminding dog owners that chocolate, raisins and various other festive foods can be dangerous.

That information is important and, if you are unsure whether something is safe, veterinary advice should always take priority.

From a training point of view, though, the more interesting issue is not really the ingredients. It is the amount of opportunity Christmas creates.

Food is suddenly everywhere.

People leave plates on coffee tables. Children wander around carrying snacks. Guests who do not normally live with a dog put things down at exactly the right height for a determined Labrador. Somebody goes to answer the door and leaves half a turkey sandwich within reach.

Dogs are very good at spotting these opportunities, especially when the humans around them are distracted.

This is where a good “leave it” and some general impulse control are useful, but sensible management matters just as much. If you leave an entire plate of food on the edge of a counter and walk away from a dog with a long history of stealing from worktops, you have created a fairly unreasonable test.

Training should not become a constant attempt to catch the dog making the wrong decision.

Sometimes the simplest answer is to remove the opportunity.

It is also worth deciding what the rules around feeding are going to be and, where necessary, making those rules clear to visitors.

If your dog is not normally fed from the table, Christmas Day is not improved by six relatives quietly handing them bits of sausage and then wondering why the dog spends the rest of the afternoon sitting beside everybody’s plate.

Dogs cope much better when the humans are at least vaguely consistent with one another.

Christmas can make that surprisingly difficult.

Children can change the picture again

Children and dogs need a little extra thought at Christmas because both are often more excited than usual.

Children may be running, shouting, opening presents, playing with unfamiliar toys and generally doing the things children do when they are having a good time. Dogs may already be coping with visitors, unusual smells, food, changes in routine and a much busier house than normal.

Even a dog that generally likes children can become tired of sustained interaction.

Make sure there is somewhere the dog can go where they will genuinely be left alone. That might be a crate, another room, a gated area or simply a particular bed that the children understand is off limits.

Adults need to manage this rather than relying on either the child or the dog to work it out.

Young children cannot reasonably be expected to read subtle changes in canine body language, and dogs should not be expected to tolerate endless interaction simply because “he normally loves the kids”.

If your dog already has a known difficulty around children, unfamiliar adults, other dogs or resource guarding, Christmas is not the day to experiment with it.

That does not mean you have failed at training. It simply means you have recognised that the environment is not the right one in which to test the issue.

There will be better opportunities for that work.

Your dog is allowed to opt out

There is sometimes a strange guilt attached to putting a dog in another room while everybody else is celebrating.

There really does not need to be.

If your dog is comfortable being separated from the action, an hour of peace may be considerably more enjoyable for them than another hour in the middle of the gathering.

Christmas can create a lot of low-level stimulation over a long period. People keep arriving and leaving rooms. There are conversations, music, food smells, children, movement and frequent interaction with the dog.

Even very sociable dogs can eventually have enough.

Watch what your dog is doing rather than assuming they want to be involved because everybody else is.

If they repeatedly leave the room, there may not be much value in encouraging them back into it. If they are becoming restless or increasingly unable to settle, give them a break. A young dog that has been awake for hours simply because something keeps happening may need sleep more than they need another round of interaction with the family.

Sometimes good dog ownership means including the dog.

Sometimes it means giving them permission not to join in.

Have a rehearsal before the real thing

If you know Christmas is likely to be busy at your house, one of the most useful things you can do is have a small practice run beforehand.

Invite one or two people over. Ask them to knock rather than letting themselves in. Run whatever door routine you intend to use. Have everybody sit down for a while. Make some food or drinks. Let people move around the room and see whether the dog can settle where you hoped they would.

You are not trying to recreate Christmas Day in full.

What you are doing is finding the weak points while the stakes are still low.

Perhaps the dog goes to place beautifully while somebody comes through the door but immediately follows them when they walk into the kitchen.

Perhaps they are fine with the doorbell but cannot settle once everybody sits down.

Maybe you realise that the bed you intended to use is positioned directly in the busiest route between the kitchen and dining table, which rather defeats the object.

Those are all useful discoveries because they give you time to make changes.

It is much better to find them in November with a couple of friends and a cup of tea than at one o’clock on Christmas Day while somebody is trying to carve the turkey.

The Christmas skills worth practising now

You do not need to spend the next two months running a festive dog-training boot camp.

There are, however, a handful of skills that tend to make Christmas considerably easier.

Place: A dog that can go to a bed or mat and remain there calmly is much easier to manage when the house gets busy. Start by making the behaviour clear and reliable, then gradually add duration and distraction.

Crate training or comfortable separation: If you want the option of giving your dog some quiet time over Christmas, make sure being separated is already something they are comfortable with. A crate should not suddenly appear on Christmas Day because the dog has become inconvenient. The same applies if you intend to use a gated area or another room.

Leave it: This is useful for far more than food. Decorations, presents, children’s toys and all sorts of other unusual objects suddenly appear around the house in December, and the ability to ask the dog to disengage from something can save a lot of unnecessary conflict.

Impulse control: Impulse control sits underneath many of the other behaviours. Waiting rather than rushing through a door, resisting the urge to grab something that falls, remaining on a bed while something interesting happens nearby - all require the dog to pause rather than immediately acting on whatever has caught their attention.

Door and threshold manners: Christmas tends to involve a lot more people coming and going than usual. A dog that understands how to wait at a doorway, rather than pushing through as soon as it opens, is easier and safer to manage.

Calm greetings: For some dogs, the challenge is learning that greeting people does not require jumping, barking or becoming wildly overexcited. For others, the useful skill is learning that they do not have to greet everybody at all. Both are perfectly reasonable aims.

A clear release cue: If you ask the dog to remain somewhere, it helps if they also understand when that job has finished. A clear release makes behaviours such as place, waiting at doors and general impulse control much less ambiguous.

Settling while life happens: This is probably the least dramatic skill on the list and one of the most valuable. A dog that can lie down and switch off while people talk, eat, move around and generally get on with their lives is much easier to live with, at Christmas and throughout the rest of the year.

Start before you need it

Ultimately, very little of this is really about Christmas.

Christmas simply has a habit of exposing the things our dogs already find difficult.

A dog that struggles to settle in October is unlikely to suddenly discover the skill when a dozen people arrive in December. A dog that becomes frantic whenever somebody knocks on the door in November will probably find Christmas visitors even more exciting. A young dog that has never been asked to leave unfamiliar objects alone cannot reasonably be expected to understand that the shiny things hanging from the tree are somehow different from every other interesting object they have encountered.

The good news is that there is time.

You can introduce the tree gradually rather than transforming the room overnight. You can practise people arriving at the door. You can work on place, boundaries and settling. You can help the dog become comfortable spending some time away from the action. And, perhaps most importantly, you can decide in advance what you actually want Christmas Day to look like rather than trying to invent the rules while everybody else is arriving.

A bit of preparation now will not make Christmas perfect.

It should, however, mean that your dog spends rather less of it being told what not to do - and that tends to make the whole thing easier for everyone.