My perspective on helping dogs behave in a calm fashion may be different than how others address it.
That's because, in my opinion, the emotion of "calm" is not something you teach operantly (dog is aware that they are learning) as much as "acquire" through classical conditioning and specific environmental associations.
"Calm" is an emotional state that results naturally from several things:
- Providing your dog with adequate physical exercise to satiate the body
- Providing your dog with adequate mental stimulation to satiate the brain
- A temperament that is stable and unstressed
- Classically conditioning your dog to feel the emotion of "calm" in various places
For example, how I "feel" in a church is different than how I feel at a rock concert, because I have developed different associations with those two places. Your dog needs to see your house as more of a church while the backyard might remain the favored rock concert.