The following is a recent question coming in from a dog owner who reads our site:
Dear Ty, Our 1.5 year old Norwegian Elkhound is shaping up nice but has two problems we can quite change yet. 1) Barking: we use a bark collar to curb his enthusiasm but he does “bark” through it. He is free in our back yard and we try to correct him as often as we can “catch” the moment. I would like him to at least stop barking on command. The only thing that currently works if for me to approach him and growl at him. Not too attractive.
2) I need to review your videos and info on sit and stay. Stay would be so useful. He does a wonderful job of “sit” and “down” but he doesn’t get “stay”. Again we need to learn to curb his enthusiasm. Please point me to resources and we will work on this with better tools.
My response:
Thanks for the question. In answer to your first question here are a few thoughts:
1- What type of bark collar are you using? I wonder why he’d bark through it? Do you have it on snug enough with a proper fit? You say that you ‘correct’ him when you catch him; how are you doing that? If the dog is going to be loose in the yard with no supervision the only way to curb barking is through some sort of bark collar or citronella collar. It’s got to be a good brand and well fit, though.
2- To get a dot to stop barking on command I usually do that through obedience. For example, the dog starts barking at the squirrel or dog next door and I’ll call the dog to me and have him stay put. With enough repetition most dogs start to ‘self-regulate’ and stop barking on their own because they realize there is no point in barking…because you’ll simply call them back right away.
In order for that to work, though, you’ve obviously got to have a perfect recall and stay behavior.
As far as your second question goes, teaching a dog to stay put is simply a matter of what you do when the dog DOESN’T stay. Our dog training DVDs have numerous videos showing how to properly correct the dog when the dog breaks the ‘stay’ behavior whether it is to sit, lie down, or go to a bed.
Happy Training!
3 Responses to “Dog Training Question About Barking”
Hi, cheers loads for your articles, I mean it is honestly inspiring and honestly, an eye opener, I truly love the concept that you bring into building websites, I personally have a puppy and I have being searching for resources like this one. Cheers.
I know my parents would like to stop their dogs from barking in the yard, and the problem is the dogs have too much freedom. My parents are just not the type of people that are going to sit out there and correct the dogs when they bark, so the realistic option for the situation is for the dogs to wear anti-bark collars. However, the dogs already wear e-collars for their electronic fence. Do you think it would hurt to have two collars on the dogs? They have not received corrections from the electronic fence in years, but my parents still like to keep those collars on for precaution. Just wondering how you would handle that.
I don’t think it’s a good long term plan to be saddling the dogs with two collars. Short term, though, I think it’s fine. I’m guessing they are already a bit ‘collar-wise’ and are aware when the collar is off and when it’s on. What you can do for the bark collar is ‘trick’ their associations. Get a simple fur saver collar or something like that. When your folks go to put on the bark collars when they are putting the dogs in the yard have them put on the fur saver as well. When they take off the bark collar take off the fur saver at the same time. Now when the dogs bark in the yard they’ll be corrected and will likely associate it with the new collar. After a time, though, and the dogs are no longer barking, try sending the dogs out in the yard with just the fur saver. By putting them both on at the same time the idea is that the dog will associate the act of the fur saver, as well, as being the reason why they don’t bark. Once the dog gets to that point you can leave the fur saver on full time and have a dog that ‘believes’ he or she will be corrected from the fur saver collar and you can have weaned them off the bark collar. Likely, you’ll bring back the bark collar from time to time for reminders but this tends to work well in getting dogs off collar.