How to Handle Excessive Barking
Posted By Erika on June 30, 2010
Does your dog bark way too much? If you’ve owned dogs for some time, chances are you have encountered a dog that barks at his own shadow and that you simply can’t get to stop. When a dog barks at strangers when they knock on your door or go near your house it’s fine, but some dogs bark at anything that moves, and simply don’t stop. This can be especially troublesome if you have neighbors who complain about it. While it really isn’t possible to lessen your dog’s barking over night, it is possible over time to correct your dog’s tendency to bark too much.
Before you can address the excessive barking, you need to know exactly what it is that makes your dog bark so much. Most dogs who are secure and content will not bark excessively, when a dog barks too much the chances are something is making the dog insecure.
Barking has been found to be a self soothing behavior in dogs. If a dog gets too bored he will often bark literally to entertain himself. If you need to leave your dog alone for long periods of time, don’t keep him tied or crated, and leave a lot of playthings. This should go a long way towards minimizing your dog’s tendency to bark too much.
Another reason dogs bark is to get attention. A common mistake a lot of people make is to yell at dogs who bark too much. This is one of the worst things you can do. When you yell at your dog, your dog thinks you are barking back, and will simply keep barking. The best thing to do with a dog who barks for attention is to ignore him. At some point the dog will realize that barking doesn’t work for that purpose. When the dog actually stops barking, that’s when you should give the dog your attention. This will show your dog that not making excessive noise is the more desirable behavior.
Negative reinforcement also works for dogs that bark too much, a humane way to do negative reinforcement is with a squirt gun. Every time your dog barks too much, squirt him in the face, eventually, your dog will figure out the correlation between the excessive barking and the squirts in the face. Many people try dog training collars and usually, a dog learns that when their collar makes a certain sound, they are not to continue barking.
Distraction is another effective method, a set of jingling keys or a can with some coins in it should do the trick. Every time your dog barks too much, shake your keys or the can till the dog stops.
A lot of exercise is one of the best ways to mitigate your dog’s excessive barking. A dog that is taken for daily walks and the regular game of fetch is far less likely to be bored enough to resort to barking or to have the excess energy to bark.
Don’t try to get your dog to stop barking altogether. Barking is dog’s way of communicating, so don’t suppress it too much. You just don’t want your dog to bark too much.