by Phillip Paris

Printed in the Williamson County Sun Newspaper on August 12, 2001

One of the most common complaints that I hear as a trainer, is of the dog who is constantly barking! This complaint most often times will come after a neighbor or even local animal control officers have been summoned to a house because of a dog that just kept barking for hours and hours. The owner of the dog, in most cases, is not even home during the time the dog is barking. Many people don't know how to keep their dog from barking while they are gone, nor do they know why the dog is barking. We are going to explore some of the reasons dogs bark outside and offer some simple training solutions.

As we discussed in previous articles, dogs bark for a variety of reasons. Almost as many reasons to bark as they have emotions. Most dogs that bark while left outside, are either barking because of territorial infractions (someone or something is violating their space), or because they are absolutely bored out of their mind and they're attempting to summon anyone or anything to come provide them with attention.

One of the first things that I will ask a client who is complaining about a barking dog, is how much exercise is the dog getting. In almost every case, the dog is not getting enough exercise. Every dog requires physical and mental stimulation to feel at ease and as if they have been productive. A dog that lacks this, will be a dog that has many poor behaviors, including nuisance barking. Every dog should get physical exercise daily! Mental stimulation is very important as well. Did you know that you can tire a dog much easier by making him use his brain versus his body? When a dog is required to think about a process or training scenario, and to actively problem solve, he will tire out much quicker. I have had many people tell me that they took their dog for a walk, and when they got back, the dog was not near as wore out as the owner. Once the owner started actively working obedience such as stay, down, come, heeling and more, the dog would be completely exhausted by the end of a 20 minute training session. Why is this? Simple, when applying obedience, the dog is forced to pay attention, recognize verbal and visual cues, and place them into action to make you happy. This requires a ton of thought process for the dog, thus making him tired. In the group classes that I teach, by the end of the one hour training session, most dogs are laying down trying to sleep!

How does this relate to a barking dog you ask? If a dog does not have enough stimulation in his life and is extremely bored, barking is a fun way to burn energy. If a dog is allowed to continue this day to day, you will have quite a behavioral problem on your hands. If it appears as if your dog is barking for no apparent reason outside, this is a dog that needs training and exercise.

The first thing that I always recommend to people with barking issues, is to start obedience training and exercise right away. Having a large yard does not mean that the dog gets lots of exercise everyday. Your dog does not exercise himself while you are gone, contrary to popular belief! Once you start daily activities with your dog, you should see your dog begin to settle down with his restless barking.

The other common nuisance barking, is the dog that barks at everything that it hears or can see. This is the dog that is alarming you that something is on or near his property. For some dogs, their property lines can be as far as they can see! They will bark at the meter reader, other dogs, squirrels, cats, and just about anything that is out. This can become a real problem if you live in a busy neighborhood.

To remedy this problem, I suggest attempting to figure out what the dog is barking at. It may be that the dog is fine until one particular stimulus is introduced. If you can figure out what that might be, then try to remove the stimulus or prevent the dog from having access to the stimulus. Example, if you have the type of dog who is always at the front gate of your yard and barks at everything that walks by or that he can see, try preventing him from having access to that gate. This is what I had to do with some of my dogs. I simply built a secondary gate at the back-side of my house which prevents the dogs from being able to come all the way up to the front gate that goes out. When they couldn't see what was out front, they had nothing to bark at!

If all else fails, you made need to use a "bark collar". A bark collar is a collar that is placed on the dog and it will correct the dog every time it barks. These are very effective at eliminating nuisance barking. The way that they work, it quite simple. The collar has a vibration sensor on it that detects when the dog barks. This vibration sensor will only pick up very intense vibrations, such as the ones that are produced by barking. The collar will then give a correction to the dog. Bark collars come in many different forms of corrections. There are some that squirt citronella spray at the dog, some that emit an ultrasonic piercing sound, some that vibrate, and some that produce a mild static electricity shock to the dog when it barks. Bark collars are very effective and are not triggered by the dog eating or whining, only barking!

After other forms of remedy, I highly recommend these as a solution to nuisance barking! They can be found at Georgetown Farm Supply, Wal-Mart, Tractor Supply, PetsMart, Petco, and just about any dog supply company.