Dogs bark for many reasons. Fear, Alert, Demand or just simply letting us know they saw something. Keep reading to learn how to Stop Your Barking Dog. Please note these techniques are not a quick fix they take Clear, Consistent Communication between you and your dog. Contact me today if you need help.
Barking can cause problems for humans such as getting an angry note from the landlord or your neighbors. It is important to note, barking can also be the root of other behavioral problem.
Solutions
Use Prevention
Prevent your dog hearing the noises while you are not able to be there to train your dog and give your dog information. You can do this by closing the blinds, putting on music or the TV and or white noise machines. Although you may not be able to fully reduce outside noise, reducing it is beneficial. Preventing the noisiest parts of your house dog access when you are not there is also a good idea. Crating your dog in a quiet room is the safest method. Take them for a walk, training session or quick enrichment game to calm their minds.
“Noisy” Training Sessions
Set up fun and easy training sessions to work with your dog in successful approximations. Figure out what noises your dog reacts to the most. Then make sure you have access to a recording of it. Start your training session with this noise on low volume, enough to hear it but not get triggered by it. Increase as your dog gets comfortable and is still listening to you. Start with noises inside the house then move to outside environments. Conditioning your dog to these noises can take time so make sure you have patience.
Real Life Training
For every noise give your dog “feed back” 100% of the time until training is complete. While you are home, if you hear a noise BEFORE your dog barks at it, tell him he is good in a calm and friendly voice and then go get your dog a treat. You can keep treat jars with treats that don’t spoil easily throughout your house so they are easily accessible.
First, feed a treat after EVERY noise you hear before your dog reacts. Do this for 2 weeks in a row to see a change in your dog’s behavior. In the future when your dog is comfortable with the noises you won’t have to give your dog treats anymore. So all your hard work will be paid off in the future. It is important to make sure your dog is not barking all day at the noises while you are gone though, as this will undo all the training you do when you are home.
What to do if your dog barks at a noise
If you are home and your dog barks at a noise before you can give him feedback or it is a noise you can’t hear, you can use a cue to interrupt the behavior such as the cue “Leave it” said in a positive tone of voice and then redirect your dog to what you would like him to be doing instead such as saying “Go to your bed”. It’s important to train these cues in training sessions using Positive Reinforcement and do brush up training sessions to maintain the power of the cues. Below are tutorials on how to train these cues.
Want to learn more about Dogs and Barking? Check out the Nifty Trick that Stopped my Dogs Alert Barking.
