Hi everyone! I have an 11 week old Chocolate Lab x Cocker Spaniel puppy who I absolutely adore. He’s been good with basic training such as sit, drop etc. but his barking is absolutely killing me. He barks for attention 24/7, barks when I’m eating my dinner, he will bark hysterically if I leave the room and go into another, if I leave the house I can hear him barking from outside, if I crate him when he’s not incredibly tired he will bark the house down. I go back to work next week and I am absolutely dreading messages from my neighbours about his excessive barking PLEASE HELP ME!! Thank you, Lauren (and Hugo)
Puppies have to learn to cope with being alone, and to love their crate and this is a slow gradual process. For the crate drop treats in the crate for Hugo to find and eat, give him all his meals in the crate. Once he's used to having meals in the crate pop his bowl in the crate and close the door so he can't reach it. Hopefully he will show that he is keen to get in the crate and get to his food so give him 10 -20 seconds and then open the crate door for him. Pop him into the crate with a stuffed kong, if he's happy close the crate door. Keep an eye on him and open the door again as he finishes the crate so he can leave the crate. This should help to build a good association with the crate. To leave Hugo with out any fuss, whether from a room or the house, we have to build his confidence that you leave but come back. So we start by popping him in the crate and leave him for 1 or 2 seconds and return. Reward him for being quiet. Practice this numerous times a day. Then we increase to 5 seconds, return and reward, the 7-8 seconds, then 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes and so on. Once you can leave for 45 minutes to an hour you shouldn't have any crying problems. If at anytime Hugo cries before you return you've tried extending the time too fast and need to go back a step and practice that level some more first. You can also practice this leaving a room and coming back in just the same way. Barking for attention is best to ignore or get up and leave the room, Reward for quiet/calm. Puppies quickly learn that barking doesn't get the attention. Barking when you are eating try giving him a stuffed kong in his crate when you your meal.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help! I will be starting all of this first thing tomorrow xx
Hi Lauren, We have friends of the family who are having similar problems with their dog. Their neighbours did complain about the barking when the dog was left as a puppy (just for short periods). As a result, they became reluctant to leave him at all and now he follows them everywhere. I appreciate that your pup is much younger than their dog, but I gave them links to the following articles on the Labrador Site (although similar advice has been given, just might help having some extra reading). https://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-barking/ https://www.thelabradorsite.com/attention-seeking-dog/ Teaching our dog ‘settle’ has been a really useful tool. Luckily, he does not really bark; however, at about 6 months he started to bark when the family were sitting down to eat which didn’t make for a very relaxing evening. This was when the ‘settle’ command came in really useful. It took a bit of time and patience but we got there.
