Can I train my dog to stop excessively barking?
Can I train my dog to stop excessively barking in most cases? Yes, now domestic dogs, do bark a whole lot more than their wild counterparts. So we are a little bit sort of fighting an uphill battle in some cases and depending on the reason for your dogs barking, whether it's coming from stress or excitement or maybe even because we've accidentally reinforced that behavior, it may be a little bit more challenging to address. It first things first, First, it's not necessary to escalate to Corrections or punishment or aversive devices that truly have flooded. The market. We don't have to use a pinch collar, we don't have to use a shock collar. We don't have to use any sort of bark, activated, collar, or anything along those lines. But we do need to find out to some degree. What your dog is trying to communicate if they're excited. Cool. Then maybe we can address that indirectly by giving them more enrichment, or more things to do with their time rather than barking if they're barking. Because They are worried or fearful, we can work with that too, and we can help that animal to feel a bit more comfortable, or secure, or even safe in those particular situations, if barking is a form of aggression or threat for them. Well, aggression, typically comes, when we've got an animal, whose needs are not being met, or they feel defensive, or there's some other reason why that's happening. So, rather than focusing just on the barking and saying, how do we stop that? I tend to focus more on. Do we have a sense of why that's happening in the first place? And can we address it there at the root cause or and what do we want that dog to do? Instead in the situation where the dog is barking? Maybe it's because the doorbell just rang. What do we want the dog to do instead, and have we given the dog, the learner enough information so that they're likely to be successful in those situations by addressing it in those ways? Yes, we can absolutely address the address aggressive barking. It may take a bit of an investment, Amount of time and effort to get there, but it's definitely doable.
Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorist