The Dog Blog

The root of nearly all behavioral issues in dogs, especially barking, is often due to the canine’s subjective feelings of isolation and/or loneliness. Dogs will often do whatever they can to get you to pay attention to them.

Dogs bark in order to get other creatures to pay attention to them, especially when they are wearing halloween costumes for dogs. They don’t care if the attention is someone coming over to see what they are barking at, someone coming to punish them, or someone just looking at them. As long as they get a response their bark has worked.

Punishment isn’t an option.

Trying to swat a dog that is carrying on is usually pointless. Canines are fast and smart and consider it to be playtime. They may halt their barking while you are there motioning with your arms but the when you begin to ignore them they will start barking all over again just so you play their game.

Just letting a barking dog in at night may make your neighbors happy that night, but it will likely mean the dog will bark every night you put it out. The animal is getting its lust for attention and thinks that it can use it to it’s advantage.

What happens after determines what happens before

If you feed your dog every time they start barking in vane that they can’t bark when their snout’s full you are just going to wind up with a fat dog who’s used to having you at their beck and call. The dog learns that anytime it wants food all it has to do is bark.

Rewarding a dog for barking at strangers that come up to the house may seem like a good idea because it makes you feel safer but it can quickly become a neighborhood annoyance. You don’t want a dog to bark just because it sees someone move. You want them to bark only when someone enters your yard and then they should only bark 2-3 times, just enough to let you know you have visitors and to let them know a dog lives here.

 

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