How to Control Barking

Video Transcript

"How to control barking? Now it's important first to figure out why your dog is barking. Some dogs bark to get your attention, some dogs bark because they need something, it's another attention getting device; some dogs bark and play. Some dogs bark out of boredom. So try to eliminate anything that could do with boredom or anxiety; for example, seeing something that makes a dog nervous and they bark at it in response or they're, they're bored and you're not paying any attention to them and they're barking and, and you're, they're not getting what they need. So make sure always to have a very good diet for your dog; read the label. Know if your dog has any potential allergies to grains or other things. There are a lot of good food on the market now that have no grains in them and dogs tend, do tend to have allergies to grain. So take that out of the equation. You can also, make sure your dog is getting ample exercise and having a good opportunity to work their minds because that's an important key as well so that you take the boredom, potential for boredom out of the picture. Now if your dog is barking at you because they want your attention, the most powerful way I found to control that is to ignore the bark for attention from the beginning. Once it started, it's a little bit harder to make it stop. But when you bring in a new puppy home and everything is going great and you're getting everything going really well or a new dog and then your dog starts barking at you for attention, you pretend that they don't exist essentially until they're quiet. What you want to do is ignore the behavior you don't want to see continue and then reward the behavior you do want to see continue. This nice, polite sitting and waiting for me to give her attention, this is something I like; so I'm going to give treats for it because it's awfully nice. Now if she would bark at me for attention, then my job would be to grin and bear it. I would not look in her direction. I would try to stay relaxed, focus on my breathing and pretend she's not there until she stops and takes a breath or again, if it's early in the behavior, just see if it's the behavior altogether and then go ahead and reward the quiet again. Lady is normally quite a barker but she's, she's being very well-behaved right now. Her, in her situation, she loves to work; she loves to learn and so she likes to try everything since she's a positively reinforced trained dog; trained with the clicker; she likes to communicate with me that, is this one of the things that she, that I want her to do or what should I do next kind of thing. And so she does a lot of vocalizing for that purpose."