Our puppy is 14 weeks today. He has a lot of energy. Over the last couple of weeks his barking has gotten bad. It started with him letting our a bark when he needs to go potty at the back door, but now he will sit there and bark and bark and bark and now will scratch at the back door and this is after he has already been out potty, at first we ignored it because he had just been out maybe 5 min. before that but we had come to find out on few occassions after we ignored him he would walk out here by the gate and the pee. So after that we started to let him out again which I'm sure he now has figured that barking is getting him what he wants but now it has gotten worse where he will do this but does NOT need to go potty. We ignore it and try to distract him with something else but he just goes right back. He loves being outside and we are out there a lot during the day which is another question I have for another post. Any ideas on how to stop the barking or what I can do?
Well, the first thing you're going to need to do, is to stop responding to it. That means - always, even when you think he might need to toilet. Otherwise you are just reinforcing it. Let him out to toilet at certain times of day, well before he is likely to bark. When you know he has been, you can safely ignore the barking. If he is going to scratch or damage the door whilst you are ignoring him, then you'll need to put a stairgate on that room so that he can't access that door to scratch at and bark at. Meanwhile, you probably need to address the reason behind the barking and the wanting to go outside - because unless you can do that, he is likely to channel that frustration into some other unwanted behaviour around the house. It sounds like he might be under-stimulated, or under-exercised, and bored and is seeking some kind of a different environment or stimulation outside - or satisfaction from just being able to ask to go out and having his request answered. You might want to consider whether you're offering enough daily physical exercise and mental stimulation - there are loads of online dog training options available at the moment, due to lockdown, so many great things to get involved with, training your dog at home.
