How to Stop a Dog Barking
Is it aggression? Anxiety? Bored? Learned behavior? There are many reasons why dogs bark. Professionals have the theory that barking is mainly for an alert and defense mechanism. However, over the years it has turned into habitual behaviors that can also lead to anxiety and aggression. Barking can be annoying and disturbing but if we gave our dogs more credit by understanding what it is they are barking at, we can resolve a lot of behavior issues.
Does your dog:
- Bark at people in and out of the home?
- Can it be embarrassing when they go off?
- Can't make them quite down after time?
What we do to help is:
- Understand why they are barking.
- Plan out how to get them to stop barking.
- Create long term results for this issue.
When we start yelling at them to stop barking, it creates more anxiety in them. When we also baby talk to them or engage that behavior on an unhealthy level can result in dogs turning a defensive bark to an obsessive behavior. Once this Pandora's box has been opened, it is extremely hard to reverse. It's completely trainable and can be successfully sustained in life but getting there can be difficult.
How to help a dog not turn into a habitual barker is by recognizing what it is they are barking at and initial a protocol or pattern to relieve them from this state of mind. A strong recall is important if they are outside when you are wanting to get them inside. For whatever reason they are barking at will be more stimulating so that recall better be strong and well controlled because when a command can not be backed up, repetitive recalling with be drowned out and the dog will not respond properly and the command will become useless. This will make training for that command even harder next time because the dog wont take you seriously.
The most common issues for barking is when the dog gets all access to the living room watching the world go by getting small shots of dopamine every time they see an "intruder." Dogs see intruders as anyone or anything they can see within their view. They don't see what we consider perimeters like our yards, fences and home boundaries. They think what they see is theirs. There are no boundaries within vision. That's where defense barking or alerting is done. Then it turns into an anxiety and habitual.
So how do we stop it? There are many different ways. One is by preventing them from having access to visual stimulus. Another way is to build confidence with obedience and behavior modification. Do we add corrections in this training....possibly. Depending on the dog and the relation of the owner. If an owner has never done relation building and only spoils the dog, the dog won't understand the circumstances and respect. Imagine a child not learning respect or having an education. It's the same thing for a dog. If all they've known was to run around and have fun, eat and sleep...there's no boundaries or control.
So teaching the dog what is acceptable and what is not is standard in training. Teaching both on and off leash obedience can help alleviate a lot of issues for inside and outside the home.