Barking - Part 2

Demand Barking Review: The dog barks at a person in order to get something. This type of barking is very easy to fix. Typical examples of this type of barking are: When playing, the sheltie will bark at the owner to throw the ball or Frisbee again. The barking stops when the play resumes. Some shelties will bark at other shelties to try to initiate play. Some shelties will demand bark when they want attention, food or to go outside.

Dealing with Demand Barking – Do’s and Don’t’s

Do ignore the behavior by turning away from the dog while it is barking and then immediately reward for quiet (treats, praise, throwing the ball, etc).

Don’t yell, speak, or in any way shush the dog. Most demand barkers will consider to this to be rewarding, so the behavior will increase.

Do use appropriate time outs to calm a particularly enthusiastic barker. Times outs are a few minutes in a quiet room or a crate, if the dog is comfortable in a crate. The time out ends when the dog calms down and stops barking.

Don’t use a spray bottle to punish the barking, especially of you use a spray bottle to groom your dogs.

Do practice a Nothing in Life is Free Program (also called Work to Earn) with this type of barker. NILIF gives the dog a job and is easy for owners to implement. A short article on NILIF is included in the newsletter.

Do have clear rules for the dog and a steady schedule.

Don’t use a shock collar, citronella collar or other physical punishment. While these methods can reduce the barking, there is often behavioral fallout from them.

Case Study 1: Bruce, the demand barker

Bruce is a middle aged sheltie who tends to be a calm sheltie, until he becomes excited by something. Bruce does not tend to show much alert barking, but is quite a demand barker, especially for attention, when practicing obedience behaviors and when playing. Bruce’s owner, Chris, contacted me for help.

When playing ball, Bruce would bark constantly at Chris. He had learned that if he barked enough, Chris would throw the ball again, just to get Bruce to be quiet. So, to change this behavior, we needed to change how Bruce would be rewarded. I warned Chris that there would be an extinction burst of barking before Bruce stopped, but that we needed to make sure that we worked through the issue all the way. An extinction burst is when the unwanted behavior increases right before a decrease. It is important not to reward during that increase!

Session 1: First, Chris and I discussed the amount of exercise that Bruce got each day. Exercise is important, but the trick is to find the right amount of exercise. Too little and you get behavioral problems and too much can also cause issues, too. Then we discussed mental exercise. With smart herding breeds like the sheltie, daily mental exercise is important. So, feeding meals out of Kongs, the Kong Wobble, Buster Cubes or other interactive toys can be one way to meet a dog’s mental needs. Practicing obedience behaviors for at least 5 minutes daily is another way to exercise a dog mentally.

Then, Chris and I started playing ball with Bruce. We waited and waited until he stopped barking. The second he stopped barking, we threw the ball. We played ball with Bruce for 30 minutes or so until he would bring the ball back and not bark at all.

We also worked on obedience behaviors that day, since Bruce liked to bark a few times before lying down or paw shaking. So, we gave the cue, waited until Bruce stopped barking and then rewarded the behavior.

Finally, we worked on Bruce’s attention demand barking. This is where Bruce barks at Chris in order to be touched. In this case, Chris had to ignore the barking, just like with the ball, and then immediately reward the quiet with praise and touching.

Between sessions, I asked Chris to practice what we had worked on that day.

Session 2: Chris and I started to play ball with Bruce again. This time, we did not need to wait long at all for Bruce to stop barking. Instead of 5 minutes of barking, he barked once or twice and then stopped. Great! We also reviewed the obedience and attention aspects and Bruce has greatly improved.

Session 3: Bruce now barks about once per throw. Chris is OK with this, so we will allow Bruce one bark. If we did not want that bark, then we would repeat session 1. Instead, we decided to add in a NILIF component to the ball game. This time, we asked Bruce to sit before we threw the ball. We waited until he sat (this can be very hard for some dogs, since ball chasing is very fun) and then immediately threw the ball. Asking for a sit, down, sit-stay or down-stay gives Bruce a job to do besides just chasing the ball. It also teaches impulse control, since he must think about what he is doing.

Now, Chris is happy that Bruce is not constantly barking at her. Their relationship has improved and Chris feels like she can take Bruce to class and actually work with him.

Please note that the names, ages, and breeds of the dogs featured in the case studies have been changed.