Why does my dog only bark at people when she’s on the leash?
Dogs may bark at people when they are on the leash because they are feeling frustrated, fearful, or stressed. The barking is a symptom of these feelings, so it is important to look for the root cause of why the dog is feeling this way in order to find a solution.
Transcript: "Why does my dog only bark at people when she's on the leash? It's a really specific problem that's actually really, really common for dogs when they're being walked by people. And one of the biggest reasons is that dogs have figured out once that leash goes on, they're no longer able to move around quite as freely as they would be able to do if the leash wasn't there. That typically means that that particular dog is having some big feelings about whatever is happening around them. In this case, if we're talking about a dog that's barking toward people, that dog may be experiencing a bit of frustration because they would rather be able to rush up and greet the person. Or in other cases, they may be feeling a bit of fear or stress because there's something about that experience that's just not allowing them to feel more comfortable. And in that case, they might actually be too close. And so they're using barking as a way of trying to control the circumstance that they're in or control the distance from that perceived threat or the thing that's kind of freaking them out just a bit. And so that's absolutely something that we can address. But I tend to think about barking in either of those situations as a bit more of a symptom rather than the big problem. And so if we just focus on the barking or just focus on the leash, we might be missing the solution just a bit."
