Having a dog, young or old, is a challenge. While they provide us with love, companionship, and a great deal of happiness, they can drive us crazy, too.
Most of the time, frustrations with our dogs come from potty training or excessive barking. If you’re saying “my dog keeps barking but I don’t know what to do,” you’re not alone.
We’re going to help you with a few great ideas on how to get your dog to stop barking. It can be tough, and you’ll have to keep an open mind, but it’s possible to correct the behavior.
My Dog Keeps Barking! How to Make It Stop
Barking is a natural thing dogs do to try and communicate with their pack. Seeing as we’re part of our dog’s packs, our dogs are simply trying to communicate something to us when they bark.
Sure, there are times when whatever they’re saying is impossible to discern and extremely annoying, but we can’t get too mad at them for it. This brings us to our first point.
1. Stay Calm, Don’t Yell at Your Dog
We all know a person or two (and maybe you are that person) who yells at their dog to “shut up” whenever it starts barking about something. This continues on to times when the dog is barking because it’s hungry or wants to be pet.
This method doesn’t usually accomplish anything, seeing as your dog is barking for a reason and its need hasn’t been filled. This just means the dog will keep barking next time.
Instead of barking back at your dog and saying “shut up,” you’ll have to be more compassionate and deliberate, which we’ll talk about later.
2. Identify Your Dog’s Need
As we mentioned, dogs typically don’t just bark for no particular reason. In most cases, there is something your dog is trying to tell you. It may be that there’s another dog outside of your home or another animal that could be considered a threat.
Many dogs have been bred to do this, so it’s literally a part of their nature. In some places, sheepdogs stay up through the next and watch the flock. When they bark in the night, their owners are alerted and come to save the flock from danger.
This behavior literally saves the livelihood of the humans, dogs, and sheep of that group. So, while your dog seems like it’s barking away into oblivion, the reality is that there’s something deep down that it’s been bred to tell you.
If the behavior is a problem, you can start by identifying the need or desire the dog has. This may require doing a little research into the breed of dog you have, or it might just mean looking at your home environment and seeing if it’s conducive to a happy, healthy dog.
3. Understand Potential Reasons
Before you jump to conclusions about why your dog is barking, get a grasp of the potential reasons it could be happening.
In many cases, dogs bark in order to receive attention from their owners or people around. This could mean that they want food or water. Make sure to feed the dogs high-quality dog food so they don’t have stomach and bowl movement problems. Many people wonder what is a low residue diet for dogs and why is it beneficial? It is suggested that it will make the dog’s poop less voluminous and smell a little better.
They may also want some kind of toy or plaything, or they have a lot of pent-up energy and want to go outside. In many cases, dogs get extremely antsy if they aren’t walked or played with regularly. When the energy builds up like this, it can come out in a number of ways that aren’t easily identified. You can do a lot of damage to the barking problem if you just go for daily walks.
Dogs also bark at individuals or animals who enter into their territory. They bark when they get alarmed, when they’re angry, when they’re bored, scared, excited, and stressed. There’s a lot to bark about in this world, and it’s up to you to find out what it is that’s wrong.
4. Choose One Correction Method and Stick With It
Most of us start by telling our dog to stop barking, gradually working up into a kind of yell. This is a negative reinforcement that is difficult for dogs to understand and often doesn’t work.
An effective way to get your dog to stop barking is to use one specific signifier to stop barking. Pick the same sound, physical marker, or look, and use it each time that your dog barks at inappropriate times.
As this conditioning starts to sink in, you’ll find that the barking gradually will stop when the indicator is used. Over time, your dog will see the behavior you choose as closure that you understand their concern and that they don’t need to bark anymore.
Treats never hurt when you’re just starting out.
5. Make Sure Your Dog is Completely at Rest
When you use your “stop barking” indicator, make sure that your dog stops barking completely and gives you its attention. If you don’t have their complete attention, they’re likely to just go back to the behavior they were doing before.
You must establish that the indicator you use means to completely stop barking and focus attention on you. This is going to be particularly hard at the beginning of your training.
Make sure that your dog entirely submits before you break attention and go back to what you were doing. As you begin to establish the behavior, your dog submits faster and faster.
You only need to give it some time and you’ll start to see really great progress.
6. Tailor Your Environment
Sometimes you’re not home to stop your dog from barking as you have to work or it appears that there’s just one thing that’s causing your dog to bark. This could be a stream of people walking past your house or a pesky bird that always swoops past your window.
When your dog sees this and you’re at work, they have free reign to bark all day and drive your neighbors insane. In this case, it could be wise to simply cover your windows while you’re not home.
Either draw the blinds or hang a dark blanket over the window and prevent your dog from seeing the potential threats.
You can also consider getting some fencing that blocks your dogs view from the outside while still giving it the freedom to be outside during the day or look out the window, etc.
7. Create a Quiet Space for Your Dog
The key to your dog’s comfortability could be the presence of a comfy room. When you leave the house, instead of letting your dog roam free or sit in a kennel, create a quiet space for them.
This could be a room with a really comfortable bed, a boatload of toys, a radio playing, or whatever else makes your dog feel comfortable. The point is to keep them contained to a closed space so they can’t engage with passersby and go on a barking spree.
8. Explore Treat Options
There are a number of options when it comes to treats. Your dog might prefer one treat to another, making it more effective when you use it for training.
Some treats can even contribute to relaxation. CBD has been known to put people and dogs into a relaxed state and even aid in muscle pains in dogs. There are a number of other benefits that are worth looking into.
Check out some of the best CBD dog treats and see if they have any effect on your dog’s behavior.
9. Anti-Barking Technology
There are a number of technologies that deter dogs from barking in subtle ways. In many cases, these are devices that emit a sound when they perceive a dog’s bark. These are sounds that are imperceptible to humans but dogs find them uncomfortable.
They don’t put the dog in any pain, but they serve as a gentle reminder that barking is behavior that leads to discomfort. There are also collars (not shock collars) that spray the dogs gently and make a sound whenever they bark.
Some people even have luck with pressure sweaters. These are sweaters that sit tight to the dog’s fur and help with anxiety and discomfort. In many cases, something like this can make a difference and improve the life of your pet in many ways.
10. Send Them to School
If all else fails, there’s nothing wrong with sending your pup to a version of doggy training. Training is an extremely effective way to improve unwanted behaviors and develop a number of skills and behaviors that you want to see.
Additionally, training is a great way to get your dog socialized and comfortable being around other people and dogs. This can have a big effect on how much your dog barks as well.
Want to Learn More?
If you’re saying “my dog keeps barking,” one of the above methods should help the problem. It’s likely that the continuous barking has led to less sleep or irritation at home, and those issues can spill into other areas of your life.
Whether it’s at home or at work, sometimes you need a little help sorting things out. Explore our site for more tips for your job, your home, and much more.
