We have a happy, healthy, loving, impulsive, goofy 17 month old black lab...sounds familiar, right? Our primary behavioral issue with him is his excessive barking for attention. He sometimes does it just when the immediate family is around, but he ALWAYS barks excessively when visitors come. He is not nervous, aggressive or experiencing any health issues. This is pure EXCITEMENT. But the problem is...it will last for hours...and its deafening. He will literally leave your ears ringing. We have tried distraction methods like bones and toys when he stops barking, and also ignoring him. We are definitely guilty of giving him attention when he is barking as it's just been too overwhelming not to take him for a walk or give him something to chew just so we can hear again. But how do we stop it? When it is just members of the household, we can ignore him easily. But when family or visitors come, you can't even speak to one another because he is barking so loud, you can't even think. It's a frustrating experience for our visitors when we simply say, "just stand here quietly and ignore him...for the next several hours." We have tried for months now to break this behavior by ignoring him...but he is dedicated to the cause. Please provide any solutions that worked for you all PS - the only deterrents we tried are an e-collar with a bark distraction setting - he just ignored that. We have not tried noise deterrents (like rattling the coin jar) because...my understanding is that is more harm than good. Thanks!
How is his self control in general? Does he have a solid sit? ie can you ask him to sit and put a full roast dinner on the floor without him moving? Can you ask him to sit while you throw balls around him? Can he sit while you walk away 100 yards and do a few back flips? If you can teach a dog self control, it goes a long was to solving all sorts of unwanted behaviours, such as pulling on the lead, running after other dogs and barking and whining. Ask him to sit and very gradually increase the distance, duration and distractions. Go back to him regularly and quietly praise and treat.
His self control could definitely be better - he is very impulsive. He doesn't have a "solid sit" - especially if a solid sit is defined by your criteria above...then no way. He would fail all of those challenges for sure. He does well to leave it, to drop it and sits for short periods of time with moderate distractions. I'm the one to blame here for sure, because I often chalk his impulsivity up to his being a pup. We work on sit for things like getting his bowl of food, crossing the street. But he could use some more challenging exercises for sure. Thanks for the nudge!
We had that (demand barking/attention seeking barking) in early adolescence. If we were sitting around in the lounge he'd start barking at us. We devised a time out plan. We started saying warningly 'We'll put you in the kitchen!' If he carried on we'd put him in the kitchen (he has a mat and his bowls are in there, it's not exactly hardship) and close the door for a very brief time out until the instant he was quiet and then we'd let him in the lounge with us again. After a few days if we said 'in the kitchen!' when he started up he would go in there by himself and come back a bit later. Which was kind of funny. That solved it! He hasn't done it since. We had already been doing impulse control stuff with his toys and leave it with treats and he was already reliable around food etc.
Oh, also with visitors we'd put him outside and only let him in when he had calmed down. I'd open the door slightly, close it again if he got hyper, repeat until he had some control over himself then let him in. He's still go straight to the guest but this time without jumping all over them. Repeat a lot until eventually you don’t need to.
Agree with this. I saw my solution on Dogs Behaving Badly. Tell her to Quiet and if she doesn't then put her in the bathroom until quiet- usually only 5 secs- then let her out. Problem solved in just a few days. Just need to find a solution for everywhere else she barks- car, pub, open spaces!
