Puppy Talk

Effective Strategies for Reducing Puppy Barking and Enhancing Obedience Training

• Dale Buchanan • Episode 104

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Ever wondered how to keep your puppy from barking at every little thing? Discover practical strategies to manage and reduce inappropriate barking in this episode of Puppy Talk. We'll explore how to limit your puppy's access to windows and use effective management and training techniques to redirect their attention. Hear Tammy's heartfelt testimonial about her journey with her dog, Ziva, and learn how to avoid reinforcing barking through conversations. I'll also share insights from my own experience with my dog, Dixie, emphasizing the importance of exercise, mental stimulation, enrichment, and socialization to keep your puppy engaged and calm.

Ready to take your dog's obedience training to the next level? Early and consistent training is key to a well-behaved dog. Patience and repetition are crucial, with thousands of repetitions necessary for reliable command following. Learn how positive reinforcement techniques, like treats and praise, can help train your dog without negative reinforcement. By gradually increasing distractions and reinforcing desired behaviors, you'll set your dog up for success. Remember, there's no quick fix; effective training demands time and effort. 

https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/07/16/6-ways-to-keep-your-dog-from-going-stir-crazy-during-a-heatwave/

RESOURCES:
Podcast Website: http://puppytalkpodcast.com
Sponsor Website: http://www.topgundogtraining.com
Dale's books: https://www.amazon.com/author/dalebuchanan

Speaker 1:

I'm Dale Buchanan, and this is Puppy Talk, the podcast that offers free advice and tips for raising a happy, healthy and obedient puppy. For more information on this podcast, visit us online at puppytalkpodcastcom. Welcome to Puppy Talk, episode number 104. I'm your host, dale Buchanan. Today I want to discuss controlling puppy barking in the house, either them barking at things outside or when somebody comes into the house. Neither one of them are good. Before we get started, I wanted to thank Tammy for sending me this request to talk about this topic, and she also sent me a nice testimonial, a nice review of the podcast and how successful she's been, and her daughter has been, with raising a new puppy. Here's what she says Two years ago, my daughter convinced me to adopt a puppy from a local animal shelter.

Speaker 1:

She said we'd raise it together. She became overwhelmed with the responsibilities. I was desperate to learn how to train the dog. The dog was eager to please but stubborn, and Tammy went on to say I deeply appreciated how you keep your messages short, specific and manageable. I'm a teacher, so these qualities are more challenging to achieve than most people realize, aren't they? And I agree they are. I like to keep it short and sweet, right to the point, get into the training and that's it. No fluff here. Long story short. She says my dog, ziva, is a happy, healthy and obedient doggy because of what you poured into me, and that's beautiful. That's really great to hear. And she says thank you so much for your expertise and willingness to share your wisdom. I hope this podcast is helping a lot of people out. You can send me a message through the website puppytalkpodcastcom.

Speaker 1:

Let's get on with this week's episode. There's two types of your puppy or dog barking in the house that are inappropriate. One is when they see something outside. So let's talk about that first. The thing that you do not want to do is allow the puppy access to windows so they can react to things. I have a next door neighbor who's got two Shih Tzus. I have a next door neighbor who's got two Shih Tzus and they sit up on the top of the couch and look out the windows 12 hours a day and bark at everything for the entire time. Anything that walks by the house whether it's me and Dixie, somebody running a car coming by, anything they react to it. My neighbor's house and mine are laid out identical. They're modular homes and we rent them and they have the exact same floor plan. In front of my windows I have plants. My couch is turned 90 degrees and facing the wall where her couch is leaning up against the windows in the front of the house. Dixie does not have a chance to look out the windows and bark or react to anything, and she wouldn't do it anyway because she's a well-trained dog. The dogs next door have access to bark at everything when they see it coming down the road.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing you want to do in that situation is use management to deny the dog's access to act that way in the first place. The next thing that you want to do is you can correct it and redirect it. Now, I'm not saying this is a good thing to do, but I've seen a lot of people have these cans with coins in it and they shake it and they distract the dog and then they get the dog to do something else go lay down on its bed, go away from the window and so forth. So you correct it and redirect it. What you do not want to do is have a conversation with the dog when they're barking, such as no, stop, quit, no more barking, come over here. No, because all you're doing is nothing. Basically, you're not achieving a goal, they're not listening to you and all you're doing is reinforcing the barking. Because they're barking and you're giving them attention. What you need to do also in that situation is tire them out with exercise, mental stimulation, enrichment and socialization.

Speaker 1:

I'll put a link to a new article that was just written in the Washington Post magazine, called Six Ways to Keep your Dog from Going Stir Crazy During a Heat Wave. Interestingly enough, this article can also be used for preventing behavior problems such as barking. The theme here is that you want to be working with your dog and you want to do the training with your dog so they don't have the opportunity to display these unwanted behaviors such as barking at things outside. The same principles can be used when somebody is coming over to your house. You want to use management and training to prevent the dog from reacting to somebody when they ring the doorbell or they knock at the door and they come into your house. This is not an aggressive dog. This is an excited dog. So how do we control an excited dog? I just said Exercise, mental stimulation, enrichment, socialization.

Speaker 1:

The dogs next door that I mentioned that bark at everything. They don't do anything but stay in the house and go for one or two walks a day in their very small yard for a very short period of time. That's their whole life. Dixie, four and a half years old, never barked in the house once, never reacts to anything ever. She goes to daycare three days a week a very good daycare that I found here in the Huntsville area. She goes to the dog park with me, with no other dogs, and plays there. She goes for five to eight walks per day and when I'm not here she has a dog walker that comes on weekends when I'm too busy training clients. She's always calm in the house because she has no other option but to come in the house, lay down on her bed and stay. When she wants to play, we do that outside of the house, at the daycare and so forth. She doesn't do it in the house. In the house is yoga studio, daycare is the nightclub. So that's how you have to think about it In the house library, outside of the house, that is your playground.

Speaker 1:

When the dogs are in the house, they have to be calm so that when a doorbell rings or somebody knocks at the doorbell, they know to go to their bed and lay down and be calm. Unfortunately, it's not an easy fix when their dog has been reacting to people that come into your house. You have to practice a minimum of 1,000 repetitions. And you think that's a lot? Hold on a second, wait till you hear this. You have to practice 1,000 repetitions before you can have somebody come into your house. So you put the doorbell ring on your phone, you hit it and the dog starts to react. You get them back to the bed. Calm, good reward. You have somebody knock at the door, the dog starts to react, put it back on its bed calm, good reward. When it's calm, you're rewarding the calmness In the meantime.

Speaker 1:

When somebody comes into your house, if they are in the training phase, you're gonna have a leash on the dog. You're gonna have the dog next to you. You're gonna reward it for sitting or laying down and being calm. Either that or you're gonna have it in the crate with a licky mat or a Kong or a food puzzle, something like that. You're gonna have the dog doing something else. When somebody comes in, it's got a higher value of the food or something that you have the puppy doing versus the person that's coming into the house. Puppies that generally act this way when people come over and they get excited and they bark and they're running around. They need socialization training. They have a lack of socialization skills and they're under socialized with people. So these dogs need to be around more people so they learn. Calm with people equals greatness. This is what we want Now.

Speaker 1:

I said you practice this a thousand times, that's not a lot, because I had a hunting dog that I got trained for hunting dog training. It was a Brittany Spaniel. He went through my course, my eight-week puppy training course, and then he went to the first phase of gun dog training in Tennessee. Then he came back and the owner had to do this command called whoa. He had to do the whoa command with this dog 30,000 repetitions in one month so the dog could go to the second phase of the gundog training. The woe command is very important because it creates stillness in the dog so they don't scare the birds, so that the owner can actually get off a shot and get a bird and kill it so the dog can go retrieve it. If the dog doesn't cooperate with this whoa command, then nothing is going to happen, right, nothing is going to work. It's a team between the hunter and the gundog. It's a very comprehensive training system and the dog has to obey this whoa command before it can go into intermediate and advanced level gundog training command before it can go into intermediate and advanced level gun dog training. This is very important. So the 30,000 repetitions had to happen so that the gun dog trainer knew that the dog was ready.

Speaker 1:

So I'm asking you to do 1,000 repetitions. If you do 500, if you do 250, you're going to get some result. You're not going to prevent or stop a dog from barking when people coming over by practicing two or three times. That's my point. You've got to rehearse and practice this for weeks and months before you want the dog to behave when somebody comes over. Here is exactly what you're going to practice.

Speaker 1:

First, get the dog to go to the bed, lay down and stay. Say good boy, good girl. Reward them. You're going to reward them for being calm on the bed. Give them a bully stick, a deer antler, licky mat Kong. Have them learn that relaxing on the bed is going to get them something good. Then you distract them when they get up. You do it again. So that's one repetition. Every time they get up, you got to start again. That's another repetition.

Speaker 1:

I can have Dixie lay down on her bed for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, one hour, when somebody's over at the house either the cleaning lady or the maintenance guy or something like that and she will not move until I release her with the word okay. This took years of training and thousands of repetitions for her to get to this level of obedience, but I started with her the very first day. So you got a dog that's two years old and never practiced this. You're going to have to put the time in, but you have a dog that's four and a half years old that's practiced this since it was 10 weeks old. It's not a problem. You have to go back and do these things that you should have done early on with the dog.

Speaker 1:

So, in review, direct the dog to the bed or place, have them lay down, stay, give them something to do, tell them good boy, good girl. Give them a food reward, give them a licky mat, give them something to keep themselves busy. Add some distractions. Add some low-level intensity distractions and then they get rewarded for not reacting to the distractions. The high level intensity distractions are going to be somebody coming into the house, knocking on the door, ringing the doorbell. If they can't do that, then you have to back up with lower level intensity distractions and work up from that point on. This is why I say 1,000 repetitions.

Speaker 1:

A common theme that I have stressed through this whole podcast is there's no magic wand, there's no magic bullet. There is prevention of unwanted behaviors through teaching obedience and discipline. This is what we do in puppy talk and this is what we do in positive reinforcement puppy training. We're not using a lot of corrections, we're not saying the word no, we're not saying stop, we're saying things to the dog that we want them to do, not trying to stop them or fix them, because that never works and you could bust your head against the wall for months and months or even years trying to use those techniques and they are not going to work long term. I hope this information was helpful to you. If you have any questions, you can reach me through my website, puppytalkpodcastcom.