Hi, My gorgeous Bear is 14 weeks and he is delightful in so many ways....his barking however is not so much! This has only been going on the past couple of weeks, he seems to have found his voice and uses it a lot! When we are in the kitchen making food he barks at us (even if he's eaten his own); he barks when he wants attention, he barks when sitting somewhere he doesn't know that well (school gates, the pub - only managed the last one for a few minutes!!!). I have no idea what to do about it. We ignore him but he just seems to keep going. I've tried distracting him and putting him in his pen (mainly to give our ears a rest) but it doesn't seem to be changing the behaviour. I know barking is natural for dogs so obviously don't want a silent dog, just one that doesn't bark so much at things that are going to be happening on a regular basis!!!! Any advice gratefully received.
Have you considered not ‘feeding him’ and having him earn his food for quiet behaviour? So every time he’s quiet and giving you the behaviour that you want, he earns his food.
My puppy was also a real barker. The first thing she would do when she woke up was bark! Only once, but very loud. Anything she wanted, she barked. The key with her was increasing her frustration tolerance, which means building up what is expected of her really slowly. When I first introduced her to the concept of having to watch my other two work, she very nearly lost her mind. Now she can sit, unrestrained, and remain calm and relaxed while they run around, retrieve dummies, chase balls etc, until it's her turn to go. There is no point in simply ignoring a barking puppy. If your puppy is barking from frustration because he wants your attention, withholding your attention isn't going to make him want it less. Of course, you don't want to reinforce the barking but you need to flip the way you deal with it on its head. Everyone here will be bored of hearing this from me, but you gotta become proactive, not reactive. If your pup is barking after thirty seconds of being asked to sit quietly at the school gates, then give him something to do after only 20 seconds and gradually build up to longer. It's a real skill to learn to be able to do nothing, but we just assume our dogs should be able to do it naturally. Use stuffed kongs, or long-lasting chews to help him learn to relax. Or, after the 20 seconds, do a little bit of training with him. Teaching him that waiting nicely results in interaction with you is very powerful. If you get it wrong and he barks, well, that's just one of those things. It's a bit like toilet training; we accept that the puppy's bladder has to strengthen and, until that's happened, any accidents are our fault as we've expected too much, and just have to be cleaned up without a fuss. Same thing here; if your puppy is barking for attention it's because you've asked him to "hold on" too long and he's not yet capable for that. Ask him to do something - sit, or touch your hand, or whatever little behaviours he knows, and then reward him. Then wait five seconds and do it again. Build it up slowly, gradually. OK, so once in a while you're going to give him your attention when he's barking at you, but the next twenty times, you're going to make sure that you give him attention for being quiet, so that one time will fade into insignificance. As @Leanne82 suggests, using his whole food allowance for training or enrichment (eg in stuffed kongs, scatter feeding etc) is a great way to build your relationship and give him loads of rewards throughout the day. If your pup's food allowance is fifty pieces of kibble, that's potentially fifty times you can reward good behaviour. Dogs don't need food in a bowl, they really don't. It's really a waste and, here's the other thing, dogs prefer to work for their food rather than have it given to them for free!
Our 12 week old puppy Chewie has been a barker (and generally very vocal, which is great when you live in a townhouse!) and I find snowbunny's suggestion of giving him a job to work well. Some puppy pushups are good. He now often will "sit" and sometimes "down" to show off how good he is when he wants something. His barking seems to be reducing in length and intensity (one or two barks, sometimes just a grizzly sound) so... there's hope. I still wish he was quieter though and that he has even a tiny bit of self control where food is concerned.
I hadn't ever thought of that! Sounds like a good idea (he's always on the lookout for food anyway so might as well make him work for it!).
Thank you, that make sense. He does seem to be getting slightly less vocal these past few days and I think I am getting better at reading him which helps. I've been doing a lot more of rewarding him when he isn't barking and that may be helping! I do tend to forget that he's only little still and will need lots of help learning the ways of the world.
Thank you for your response. I shall try more training bits to keep him amused! He does to have got a bit quieter.....or maybe I'm just used to it now! Bear has no self-control around food. He will wait but then practically snorts his food down. I got him a slow feeder bowl which had a momentary effect but he has now worked out the best way to get the food and is almost back to as fast as he was before! Everyone just tells me he's a typical Labrador!
I have an 11 week old boy, who only barks when he wakes, or when we go out the room, or leave him in his crate. I know he just wants me to stay, or join him. The hardest to sort is when I leave the kitchen, and close him in. He tends to bark and jump at the door. I can stop him by telling him to sit, but he just restarts when I go. His toilet trg is going well apart from that he often wees in the kitchen on a wood floor. He never wets his crate and does often wee outside as well. I use the word toilet when he weeks outside. Never poos indoors. We catch him weeing inside often, but don’t want to tell him off. We just pick him up and take outside. Any magic tips. Neither are really big issues. Just trying to be consistent. Jeff
You are right not to tell him off - if he is weeing indoors it's your fault not his! He is still very much a baby, with a small bladder and still learning the signals for when he needs to go. When he needs to go, he needs to go - right now! So he needs to be taken into the garden for a toilet opportunity after every meal, after every sleep, after every play, after every training session and around every 30 minutes or so apart from that during the day. If he is weeing indoors you're not taking him out often enough to build the association of outside and toilet, plus reward for performing. You also need to ensure that you clean all accidents with something like Simple Solution to ensure that you remove all smell of urine. Ordinary household cleaners will not remove urine smell so a puppy will return to spots used previously as the smell tells them that's a spot for weeing If he is crying and scrabbling when left it's probably because you haven't slowly built up the time left alone. One of the reasons we use crate with puppies is because it gives equipment with which to help train our puppies that it's ok to be alone and that we come back. We start by leaving literally a few seconds and returning and very slowly extending. It takes some weeks to build any duration into a puppy being left alone in his crate and also involves lots of tasty Kong's and happy experience. Early experiences should be with a kong and the gate left open so he isn't locked in. If a puppy is left to cry and become distressed when left it can develop into Separation Anxiety which is a lot harder to resolve
THe really important thing when considering barking (well, any unwanted behaviour) is WHY the dog is doing it. Because only if you can understand the motivation, can you form a plan to change things. There are many, many, many reasons why dogs bark - and they would each have very different approaches to solving the unwanted barking, dependent on the cause. From your description, it sounds like you are experiencing frustration barking - barking when the puppy wants something, but it is being withheld from them. The really important thing, here, is that the puppy never gets the thing he wants or any reinforcement, as a result of barking. OR he will just bark more next time. So, if he is barking when you are making food, he doesn't get any of that food and he also doesn't get your attention - you don't even look at him. People often say they are 'ignoring' the dog, when they mean they are not actually speaking to the dog or giving the dog treats etc - this isn't enough - even LOOKING at a dog making noise, can sufficiently reinforce an attention-seeker. Imagine that your dog does not exist and is completely invisible, when barking. Barking when you are somewhere unusual and sitting there, is probably a type of frustration again - the puppy wants to be exploring this new place, finding new smells and doing what he wants to do - not sitting still. However, that doesn't mean you need to supply all that - it's important that puppies can learn to settle too and be calm in new places. Whatever you do, don't respond to the barking by 'preoccupying' the puppy - getting up and allowing the puppy to sniff around etc - or you are only reinforcing it. Again, you need to sit still and ignore it until it stops - THEN, once it has stopped for at least 2-3 seconds, you can let him sniff around. In situations where it is socially embarrassing to allow a puppy to bark and bark (like waiting outside school) and you don't think you will be able to just ignore it, then you need to anticipate that it is likely to happen and perhaps not sit still in the first place - so he doesn't get frustrated and then bark - because he is constantly smelling new things and exploring. Meanwhile, I would suggest attending a good puppy class, because training a puppy to settle and be quiet is a central part of any class.... Good luck with your pup.
