Quick Ways to Reduce Barking

Is your dog's barking disturbing neighbors and now you're getting complaints? Or maybe you are just worried that the number of noises that trigger your dog’s arousal and barking are causing your dog to become stressed. Or maybe you’re the one who is stressed from your dog’s barking.

Before we talk about what to do, it’s important to understand this:

Barking isn’t the problem. It’s a symptom.

Dogs bark for a reason. They bark because they hear something, see something, feel something, or are trying to communicate something. If we focus only on stopping the barking itself, we miss the bigger picture—and that’s where people tend to get stuck. We can't expect to eliminate it 100% any more than we should expect to eliminate the way dogs explore their world through sniffing.

However, prevention of excessive barking is a goal that we should aspire to, whether the barking is due to anxiety, or to the dog being hyper aware and alerting to some change in the environment. In an earlier post I wrote about one method that can be used to stop, or at least minimize, barking to things happening out the window. But there are things you can do to your dog’s environment to mask the triggers that cause the barking.

Why Does My Dog Bark?

Not all barking is the same. Dogs bark for a variety of different reasons, and to adequately reduce or eliminate the barking you need to determine why it's happening.

• Boredom

• Frustration

• Attention seeking

• Anxiety

• Alerting to environmental change/perceived threats
  

If we don’t identify what’s driving the behavior, any attempt to “fix” it is going to fall short.

Manage Your Dog’s Environment

Alert barking is a common problem for many dog owners. It's hard to live with an animal who screams out the window at every passing pedestrian, or at the neighbors working in their yard. It’s not realistic—or fair—to expect a dog to never bark. A more useful goal is to reduce excessive barking by reducing the situations that trigger it. This is where management comes in.

Management doesn’t teach your dog a new behavior. Instead, it changes the environment so your dog has fewer reasons to react in the first place.

Adding Noise to Mask Noise

If your dog startles and barks at noises, then think of ways that you can add noise to the environment to mask external noises. You could leave the TV on with the volume up, but be sure that what is showing won’t be disturbing to your dog. Some dogs do watch TV and will get worked up at the sight of dogs or other animals on the screen. Additionally, you probably don’t want an action-adventure movie playing with the sound of bombs and gunfire.

There is research that shows that some types of classical music can be calming for dogs, and there are even DVDs made specifically for dogs to help them relax. Playing the right music at a level loud enough to mask external noise may also help with reducing the stress level of your dog.

There are also apps for people who like to sleep with the sound of waves, rainfall or other soothing sounds, and inexpensive machines that produce a variety of options as to the type of sounds.

Using white or brown noise is another option. You can buy machines that produce white or brown noise. Additionally, there are videos on YouTube that produce white or brown noise for as long as 10 hours at a time. An easy thing to use is a simple box fan.

Placement of the speakers producing the masking noise is important. They need to be placed between the dog and the source of the triggering sound. So if your dog is likely to bark at sounds they hear from the window, the speakers should be as close to the window as possible. If your dog barks at sounds coming from the hallway of your apartment building, the speakers should be placed close to the door.

Prevent your dog from looking out the window

If one of the triggers for your dog’s barking is seeing things happen out the window, then it may be helpful to prevent your dog from being able to look out the window. It could be as simple as closing the curtains or the blinds, although be aware that there have been cases of dogs destroying blinds, or even injuring themselves by getting their heads caught between the slats. And most dogs will just push curtains aside.

Preventing your dog access to your windows may be another option. If one or two windows are causing the most problems it could be that preventing access to that room could be your easiest course of action. You can also put up barriers, such as an exercise pen, to keep your dog from getting to the window.

There is a stick-on film for windows that works through static cling. They come in a variety of designs with some merely making a window look like frosted glass, and others that look like stained glass. Although the film is inexpensive, it doesn’t look cheap at all. And because it’s static cling, it's temporary and can be easily removed.

What not to do

People often want to address the barking and make it stop. The problem is, as I noted in the previous section, is that barking actually has a function. Using corrections to stop barking may work, but it doesn't address the underlying problem. Additionally, using corrections to address barking can cause stress and anxiety, Those can cause additional problems. Oftentimes I hear people yell at their dogs to "Shut up" or "Quiet". The problem is that barking is a community activity with dogs. When we're yelling, to a dog it's just their are people joining in on the barking. Unfortunately, bark collars are a very popular choice for people who have dogs that bark too much. These collars can appear to work by suppressing the dogs barking using punishment. The problem is that many times they are used on dogs that are barking out of anxiety, and using punishment with a dog who is anxious only increases the anxiety.

Additionally, there can be some unintended consequences. The dog could associate getting shocked with people, other animals or items located in the environment. This in turn could develop a fear issue, or possibly even aggression.

Dog Barking When Left Alone

Sometimes barking isn’t just about outside noises or visual triggers.

If your dog is barking when you leave the house, that may be a sign of separation anxiety, not just a “barking problem.”

This is where things get more complex.

When working on separation anxiety, barking can actually make training more difficult—not because it’s disruptive, but because it interferes with our ability to read the dog.

As a trainer, I’m not just listening for barking. I’m looking at:

• Body language

• Movement and pacing

• Subtle signs of stress
  

If a dog is barking continuously, it becomes much harder to accurately assess how they’re feeling. And if we can’t read that clearly, we risk moving too quickly—or too slowly—in the training process.

Putting It All Together

If your dog is barking a lot, start here:

• Look at what’s triggering the barking

• Reduce your dog’s exposure to those triggers

• Focus on helping your dog feel calmer, not just quieter

  
  

And if your dog is barking when you’re away, it’s worth taking a closer look at whether anxiety is part of the picture.

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If your dog is barking when left alone, you may not be dealing with a simple training issue. You may be dealing with an underlying anxiety problem.

That’s something I help clients work through step by step, with a plan tailored to the dog in front of us.

If you’re ready to get a clearer picture of what’s going on—and how to move forward—you can reach out to learn more about working together.

I offer virtual training packages and may be able to help!