Your dog bolts out the door

Dog bolting

Bolting is your dog escaping — through doors, gates, or fences — the instant freedom appears.

The first time, you caught them in the driveway and laughed about it. Then it was the gate, and it took twenty minutes. Then a neighbor called, or a stranger held them until you got there. Maybe there was a close call with a car that you still think about.

Now you hold the collar every time the front door opens. You warn guests before they come in. Your dog hasn't been off leash in months, and every trip in and out of your own house is a maneuver.

Why is your dog bolting out the door?

Every dog that bolts is going to something or away from something. That's the first question, and the answer names the drive.

Running after something that moves, or off on a scent to hunt, is prey. Running toward people or other dogs is social. Escaping to fight is civil. Running away from something frightening is defense. Same dash out the door, four different reasons, four different plans.

Then there's the other half, and it's the harder half to hear. Instinct gives your dog the reason. The opening is what makes it possible, and the openings come from handling — the door left cracked, the gate that doesn't latch, the gap under the fence, the moment nobody was watching. Your dog found the hole and learned to use it.

Which means a dog that bolts is a handling problem before it's a dog problem. Every successful escape teaches your dog that the hole is there and it works. Now your dog is searching for the next opportunity.

How we stop the bolting

We close the openings, and we build a desire to be home through engagement and management. We turn the drive back toward the handler and stop letting the outside world pay for leaving. Your dog earns freedom back instead of having it.

First your dog's temperament is evaluated — drives, disposition, engagement. The evaluation tells us what your dog is bolting to or from, and which way to work them.

Then your dog gets a map: the foundation first, then the commands this depends on — recall, stay, place, and down — so the open door becomes a command your dog holds rather than an opportunity. Chapter 36 comes after that. For an adult dog, a remote collar or a containment system can reinforce the boundary when you can't be standing at the door. Never on a puppy.

We'll also go over containment, plainly. Repair the breach. Fence a dog that digs or jumps into something it can't get through. Don't leave a bolting dog unattended in the yard, and no tie-outs, ever — they're not a containment plan and they're not safe.

Until the recall is solid, your dog doesn't get unsupervised freedom. That isn't punishment, it's how the behavior stops getting rehearsed.

The finished picture is a dog that sits while the door opens, comes when it's called, and gets its freedom back because it earned it.

20+ years · author of Building A Solid Canine · every dog is evaluated first

Two ways to start.

Bring your dog to a Saturday.

Garrett reads your dog live at the Saturday workshop in Placerville, CA — that's a Working Evaluation, $200. You get the full day, the printed workbook and the full book, and your dog's written route through it. Every dog is evaluated first. Bite histories welcome with honest disclosure.

Or we come to you.

An In-Home Session at your house, up to two hours, with the same workbook, book, and written route.