Barking

My 10 month old labradoodle barks excessively he barks at everything and for everything he barks at us for attention or just simply to bark we really would like him to calm down I know he is a big ball of energy right now being a puppy and all but the barking is starting to drive us a little crazy will he ever stop and settle down help please

 

I cant help sorry I've never had a barker whenever one of my pups started id just say gently inside voice only they soon got it

 

Sorry I can't help, I'm still struggling with my 3.5 year old barker He barks for attention, he barks out the window at cars, at people, at cats, at nothing. My trouble is I am not consistent, but its so hard. He'll bark and bark out the window when I'm in another room, so not giving any attention whatsoever. BUT he does it much less when OH is home with me.

 

Depriving the dog of attention is only a useful tactic if the thing your dog is after is your attention. If Coco is barking at people and things passing, then your attention or lack of it is inconsequential. I'm working on a similar thing with Shadow alert barking at noise in the apartment block and am approaching it with a lot of LAT, so he gets a treat as soon as there's a noise. If he starts to bark, I either distract with a "scatter" or, if possible, I hold a good treat to his noise, wait for a second of silence, mark and reward. I'm also investing a lot of his meals in rewarding him for just chilling out. I'm setting up situations where we make noise, both in the house and at the door and he's really coming on well. Someone has been drilling and the concierge has been cleaning this morning, which creates a lot of noise, and he hasn't barked once. It's slow progress, but I can see the difference. I'm not bothered by thoughts of giving him attention for barking because that's not the thing that's motivating him to bark.

With Luna, on the other hand, she can bark for attention on occasion. Always one single, very loud bark. She's done it since she was a tiny puppy - she would wake and immediately bark! Because of nasty neighbours where I first was with her, I felt I had no choice but to go and quiet her when she barked, but this obviously did reinforce it in her case, so it's been more problematic to fix it. Consistently getting up and leaving the room when she does it, as well as working on building her frustration tolerance, is making a big difference.

So - the approach of how you use your attention with a barking dog differs depending on why your dog is barking in the first place.

Maybe the reason Coco does it more when your OH is home is because he feels more secure that his family is together, so doesn't feel he needs to alert you to perceived threats as much.

 

Here is a good article - https://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-barking/

Keir tend to bark with impatience/excitement, eg when I’m putting my shoes on to take him out. I’m using treats and ‘wait’ to get him to focus and not bark. It works, but it takes longer to get ready that way!

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Tilly barks when she wants something, and it is usually pretty obvious what it is. i.e. To go out on the upper deck, out on the front porch, or the food we are eating. Tilly will also often bark at people or dogs walking by our house or coming up on our front porch. I don't know how she knows about them, since she seems to be quite deaf.

Cooper barks inside when playing bitey face with Tilly. Outside she will occasionally bark at a cat or squirrel, and once in a great while at a dog or person going by, though usually she just watches.

Our first Lab, Ginger was a great watch dog. She barked ferociously if some one came up to our front door, and she sounded huge and vicious. As soon as the door was opened she turned into a waggy tail friendly lab. She almost never barked besides this.

Overall they don't bark much and don't cause a problem. Unlike some of our friends dogs, they don't stand in the back yard and bark continuously at other dogs or people. Cooper will stop barking outside if we call her. Tilly pretty much does not bark outside. If we could convince Cooper to play bitey face without barking all would be good.

If we accidentally locked Tilly in a room at home, or outside on the deck she would bark insistently until we let her in. Ginger would never bark like that, she would just sit quietly and wait, and Cooper may eventually bark, but she will sit and wait quietly for a while. Point is that different dogs bark for different reasons, and sometimes it is easy to know why and sometimes not. Sometimes stopping it is easy and sometimes not.