While its reassuring to know that your dog will sound the alarm when an intruder approaches, when the barking never ends it can be a real headache. If your dog wont stop barking, don’t panic. Incessant barking is a common problem and one that most experienced dog owners have had to deal with at one time or another.
There are a number of reasons why dogs bark, including boredom, confinement, barking for attention, and barking in protest. Dogs also commonly bark in response to a stimulus, such as a stranger or car passing by the house, or when there is someone at the front door. By removing the stimulus the barking should stop.
None of the reasons for excessive dog barking are difficult to overcome providing you work to eliminate the potential causes. In order to try and combat excessive perpetual barking, I recommend the following stop dog barking strategies:
- Begin training as soon as possible. Dogs who bark at everything perceive themselves as the leader of the pack. The pack leaders duties include guarding the group and its territory from potential danger. Your dog needs to learn that in fact it is you who are the pack leader, not them.
- During the initial phase of stop dog barking training, do your best to remove either the stimulus causing your dog to bark, or remove your dog from the situation.
- Avoid leaving your dog alone outside for long periods of time. Confinement, loneliness, and boredom often give rise to territorial barking and barking for attention.
- Spend as much time as possible exercising and training your dog, and try not to leave your dog alone so often and for so long. For many people with very busy lives it is inevitable that their dogs will be alone for some of the time, however I recommend that you keep this time to a minimum.
- Try to stop your dog from accessing good vantage points such as sofas, chairs, and windowsills. Tell your dog to “get down” and put them in a place where they are deprived of visual stimulus if they continue to misbehave and bark.
- Avoid loosing your temper and yelling at your dog. The biggest mistake to make when rehabilitating a barking dog is to loose your temper and yell. When you shout your dog interprets that as you barking too which inevitably leads to more barking. By joining in with the barking you are also reinforcing your dogs perception of themselves as pack leader (they barked first and you backed them up). Also, if your dog is barking for attention and you loose your temper, you are reinforcing the behavior. Dogs are very social animals, even to the point of preferring being scolded by their owners to being ignored and alone.
There are also some tools available on the market that may help you stop dog barking. These include electric bark collars that give your dog a mild electric shock each time they bark, and citronella collars which spray citronella on your dogs nose when they bark. These tools are most useful in single dog households and may well help you in your dog obedience training efforts.
I hope that this information helps you in your stop dog barking training efforts. Please feel free to browse the rest of this website for more dog obedience training tips and advice.