My 2 labs are super dogs, they've just passed their bronze KC test. They're very good in the house, and once walked snooze and mooch around quietly. However, should a tradesman call they go bananas! We have just moved to a new house where there is an existing child gate across the kitchen, so we hadn't bothered to replace it with our previous Argos dog gates - however, we've just had a roofing contractor visit to estimate for repairs and the 2 year old bitch jumped straight over the gate and jumped up at him, nearly sending him flying - and he was a big, strong man. I put her straight on her lead and she was fine then - but what's the best way to handle this situation?
(I'm Cathy - "Fortis" - but the computer's been repaired and I can't seem to log in anymore - I've had a message to say "password sent" but I haven't received it. Help!)

Labradors are great "People Dogs" Cathy, but they will still look after their home and human. Also with two, one tends to egg the other on literally competeing to see who can make the most noise. We then compound the problem by shutting them away when we have callers because it makes life easier.

Very obviously we should not shut the dogs away because we cannot remove the problem by ignoring it! The other side of that is that some people are genuinely afraid of dogs and we have an obligation as the owner of the dogs to not allow our dogs to frighten these people.

You know your visitors, who is ok with dogs and who may be worried so try to allow the dogs to greet those visitors who will be ok. Tell them to ignore the dogs and just carry on with what business they came about. Maybe you can speed things up a bit by getting friends and neighbores to call round. Just a knock on the door, "Hello" and then away again. 30 seconds is all thats needed. As the dogs get used to a regular diet of callers the excitment should go out of the situation.

Best wishes, John