Episode 4: Barking Mad

In Episode 4: Barking Mad, we’ll talk about why dogs bark and strategies for humans and their sensitive ears to live a little more peacefully with our dogs.

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Transcript

Episode 4: Barking Mad 

Hi everyone! I’m Kathrine, a professional dog trainer, mom of 4, and CDBC with the IAABC. If you’ve got your hands full with a little more dog than you imagined and a little less time than you thought, I’ve got you covered.  Every week, I’ll give you three actionable ways to help you and your dog live in harmony, condensed into short 10-minute bites you can chew on your way to the grocery store, out jogging, or working through that lurking pile of laundry.

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In Episode 4: Barking Mad, we’ll talk about why dogs bark and strategies for humans and their sensitive ears to live a little more peacefully with our dogs.

A water faucet dripping. The smoke detector batteries dying at 3am. The swell of the full canine orchestra when someone dares to walk past the house in the middle of your 25th Zoom meeting. Life’s little frustrations can add up – and sometimes we’ve just had enough. Barking can be one of the triggers for many people to get upset with their dogs and act in ways that can hurt their relationship without ever really solving the problem – because the next day, it happens again. And the next. Is there a better way?

Understanding why dogs bark can help us find a path through the chaos. The most important thing to keep in mind is that barking is a normal, appropriate behavior for dogs to exhibit. We may not enjoy the tintinnabulations that so musically swell in the barks, barks, barks – but that doesn’t make them a BAD behavior, and they aren’t something we can simply eliminate from our dogs’ behavioral repertoire. Addressing barking is similar to addressing housetraining – poop happens; it’s the when and where it happens that we have the opportunity to modify. 

So WHY does barking happen in the first place? Ironically, because we humans chose it as a desirable trait. Wild dogs and wolves rarely bark. Domesticated dogs do. Research indicates that dog barks have different meanings, and humans are able to distinguish those meanings and determine a dog’s emotional state from the sound of the bark. In short, it’s likely that by selective breeding over thousands of years, we developed a dog-human communication system. And here we are in the year 2022, realizing that the early-warning system needed by a shepherd protecting his flock is a little bit of overkill for an apartment-dweller. Does that mean we’re stuck? 

Luckily, the answer is no. Yes, dogs will bark. But there are many things that you can do to reduce how much it conflicts with YOUR needs without creating an unfair situation for your dog. Remember, as companion dog advocates, we always look for creative ways to balance the needs on both ends of the leash. If one or the other is weighted too heavily, the resulting stress can lead to a ripple effect of unintended negative consequences, even if it solves a short term problem.

Let’s get to the answers! Lucky for us, you can use the acronym B-A-R-K to remember them. 

We will begin with B - Block the Trigger. 

The first thing you can do is put your Sherlock Holmes hat on and dig into the immediate causation of barking. In simpler, less tweedy words, what is going on in the environment that the dog is responding to? What is your dog sensing? How is he perceiving it?  Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to brainstorm as many solutions as possible that could put a barrier between the trigger itself and your dog’s brain. Here are some examples.

My client Sanjay had a big issue with his dog always barking at people walking down the street. We were doing a virtual session and I asked the simple question – when and how does your dog see the people? It turned out his small breed dog would jump up onto an end table by a high window to see out and bark. Sanjay moved the table. No more barking! And before that virtual session, I had proactively crated my own dogs so they wouldn’t need to announce the grand entry of each kid, bike, dog and jogger participating in the regular parade down our sidewalk.

There are many ways to block the trigger. Don’t think of just one when you’re brainstorming. If your dog barks in the car, how about crating her? Or maybe a seatbelt and window shades? Perhaps try a calming cap, a wearable hood that occludes the dog’s vision. Run through all your options and discover what works best for you. What if it's an auditory trigger? Try white noise, or remove your dog from the room where the trigger is most likely to occur.

It’s not always about a physical barrier. Distance works, too. If your dog barks at other dogs on walks, try walking earlier in the morning, or driving to a quieter location, or playing in the back yard instead of daily walks, or even teaching your dog to walk on your treadmill while you do your own morning fitness routine. Especially if the trigger is worrying or even scaring the dog, your dog will be less stressed, more relaxed, and enjoy a better quality of life when he’s not constantly exposed to the trigger. 

The trigger can also BE distance – such as absence from you. If you have a dog that barks out of panic, boredom or frustration when alone outside or when you leave, it can take a change of lifestyle and a serious discussion with a trainer or veterinarian about how you can better meet your dog’s needs to get to a resolution. I’ll emphasize here that ignoring the communication and punishing the dog for barking is never an acceptable solution. It’s unfair to your dog to be constantly put into a state of distress or panic, and it ignores the impact chronic stress can have on your dog’s health.

The important thing about the process of identifying and removing triggers is that your mindset is curious and open. If your gut reaction is to come up with obstacles to every potential answer, try turning that creativity around and coming up with ways you can modify an idea to make it work for you.

Next we’ll move on to A – Ask for an alternative. This idea has created so many breakthroughs with my clients! Instead of barking, what do you want your dog to do when a trigger happens? Picture your ideal world in your mind. Imagine yourself getting the leash out and your dog sits instead of bouncing up and down while screaming like a cougar. Work on that ideal behavior outside of the problem context until it’s strong, then start to wrap in the trigger. If your dog barks, game over – don’t go for that walk! If they don’t bark, reward at each step of the process and keep moving toward that big reward of heading out the door.

Some other simple alternative behaviors include looking at you – a great alternative to barking at other people, squirrels, or other exciting stuff on walks – or coming to you, a wonderful alternative to a welcome committee of chaos at the doorway. Remember, the key is that you have to practice these OUTSIDE of the problem setting. Learning to throw a football on the starting line at the SuperBowl would be astonishingly ineffective. 

Another great method to dissolve barking is R for Redirection. As opposed to asking for an alternative, Redirection doesn’t require prior training. But, you have to be ready to act. Let’s say my dog is barking at a squirrel outside. Instead of yelling “QUIET” ten times at different levels of volume and fury, how about I go grab a cheese stick from the fridge, show it to my dog, lead them to their kennel, stick the cheese stick in a Kong and let them dissect the toy. Although this doesn’t serve as a preventative, it solves your problem right away before you get mad and before your dog has a chance to claw through your window screens. 

What about a dog who gets very excited and barky when you get home, or when guests arrive? He’s SO friendly, but SO loud. You could have a basket of toys by the front door, and toss him one as they walk in. Let him redirect that energy to a fun game instead of trying to squash it. If your dog doesn’t play with toys, what are some other fun things he does enjoy that you could use to redirect?

Last is K, and we’re done with our action items, but this one is still important. K is for knowing. Knowing that your dog will always be a dog, knowing that dealing with barking is more compromise and negotiation than law enforcement, and knowing that as a companion dog advocate, it’s your responsibility to meet your dog’s needs for safety, play, and communication instead of suppressing them.  

This is why I don’t recommend band-aids like collars that startle or shock dogs when they bark. Remember, we created dogs to bark. The least we can do is respect this form of discourse with our friends and learn to integrate it into our existence as dog guardians instead of viewing it as a mortal enemy to be destroyed at all costs, including our dogs’ mental health.

With creativity and incremental change, you can find a way to go from Barking Mad to a Barking Good Time. I hope you’ve enjoyed the tips and tricks from today, and have some ideas on how to help your dog communicate in a more human-friendly manner. Next time, we’re going to cover a subject near and dear to my heart how to help children learn to be companion dog advocates and interact with dogs safely. You’ll hear from me then!