How To Control Your Dog’s Barking
When a dog barks, it may have heard a threat, is bored, in pain, or wants to get attention. Some breeds are “noisier” than others and, in many cases, this constant noise can bother us. In this article, we’ll give you some advice so you can control your dog’s barking.
Why do dogs bark?
Before solving the problem, we must first identify its causes. The most frequent reasons why dogs bark are:
1. Stress
Living under very extreme conditions, being mistreated, being alone for a long time, not having enough space to move or being discouraged are synonymous with barking.
2. Loneliness
When he spends a lot of time alone, the dog feels abandoned and needs to show this feeling in some way. Don’t forget that dogs are beings who love to live in a pack 24 hours a day.
3. Anxiety
When you take your pet to the vet, he probably doesn’t like to ride in the car or feel lonely when you leave. All of this produces anxiety and one way to alleviate it is barking.
4. Bad socialization
If the dog does not come into contact with others of its kind or with children, it is likely to start barking in these situations.
5. Emotions
When showing frustration, enthusiasm, joy or sadness, dogs bark. They also do this when they are afraid or when they are nervous.
6. Health problems
With age, dogs lose their visual and auditory abilities, and the frequency of barking significantly increases. This also happens when they are in pain or sick.
Advice to reduce your dog’s barking
Once you’ve detected the reason your dog barks so much, and if it’s not a health or emotional problem, we suggest you perform the following techniques to avoid excessive noise:
1. Correct as many times as necessary
With physical correction (a light touch with the hand), an imperative sound (no!) or a look, the animal should reduce barking. But it doesn’t end there, because it could start again in a few minutes. Be patient, as it will probably take several days of training for your dog to understand that what he is doing is wrong.
2. keep calm
It’s true that barking is really annoying, especially if we want to rest, our head hurts or we just got home . But if you get nervous or depressed, you won’t be able to correct your dog’s posture. Remember that a pet does not follow orders from unbalanced leaders.
3. Claim your territory
If your dog is barking several times at the same object or situation, surround him and show that it belongs to you. In this way, you will create an invisible “wall” between the bark motif and the animal.
4. Challenge your dog
Dogs often bark to release pent-up energy. The solution in this case is more than simple… play with it! Whether taking him for a walk in the park or throwing a ball several times… The important thing is that he gets a little tired and transfers his intensity to something other than barking.
5. Put on a song
If the reason for barking is because you are alone for many hours a day, it is possible to remedy this situation by leaving the radio or television on. Silence often leads to barking, but if someone is talking or listening to music, the animal will pay attention to this stimulus and make no noise.
6. Help him to socialize
If your pet has never come into contact with other animals, it is likely to bark whenever it encounters a dog on the street. Try enrolling him in a group of dogs in a square or park, for example.
7. Seek help
If he doesn’t listen to you and keeps barking even though he’s tried all the tips, it might be better to ask a professional for help. Training is essential to deal with this misbehavior of dogs.
