How to stop dog barking

Mr & Mrs Justin   Name: Cassie   Breed: Golden Retriever   Age: 7 years old

Behaviour Problem – Excitable barking

Mr. & Mrs. Justin contacted me with concerns over their Golden retriever Cassie. She was becoming increasingly noisy, barking at people passing the house,  became very excited when visitor arrived, barking to the point where they could not hold a conversation.

Mr. & Mrs. Justin said that Cassie would not take any notice of them when they shouted at her to stop barking and they just did not know what to do!

Cassie was also very demanding in the house, constantly needing attention and yet outside in the garden or when taken for walks it was difficult to get her attention.

History

Cassie had been fine up to about a year ago when Mr. & Mrs. Justin moved into a new house. This house had a garden that was very open and quite busy in term of passing human traffic.

She had been very well socialized, puppy classes, further adult training in her younger days. The result was that Cassie became an extremely sociable dog and loves people / attention.

Solution applied

When I entered the house on my first visit there were dog toys all over the floor. I was bounced on by this very friendly Goldie who when I refused to give her any attention ran and picked up one of the toys and began to thrust it at me.

At this point Mrs. Justin started to shout at Cassie to stop it and tried to pull her away.

When I finally sat down and started to talk to Mr. & Mrs. Justin Cassie immediately started barking and Mrs. Justin picked up a toy and said ”it’s the only way we can stop her from barking”.

Following my conversation with Mr. & Mrs. Justin it was quite clear that they had been inadvertently rewarding Cassie’s barking / demanding behaviour. They were continuously bombarded with and responding to Cassie’s demands for attention, which was made worse when visitor arrived in that someone else was now getting the attention, that Cassie thought she should have.

My first advice was to remove all the toys and place them in a box that could only be open by them when THEY wanted to play.

Mr. & Mrs. Justin were advised to stop responding to Cassie’s demands for attention, by ignoring her completely – no talk, no touch, no eye contact. If Cassie continued to demand they were to get up and walk out of the room, leaving Cassie on her own for about 2-3 minutes. Re-enter the room only if Cassie was quiet – timing very important here.

They were to repeat this process each time the demanding behaviour occurred, ignore her if this does not work, walk out.

They were also to put Cassie on regime of having to earn any attention that she was given by responding to basic control exercises like, sit or down before she was given fuss or a game with a toy.

Mr. & Mrs. Justin were taught how to teach Cassie to “quiet” on command for a treat. They were advised to control Cassie on a lead when visitor arrived, firstly to stop her from bouncing them and secondly to stop visitors rewarding her excitable behaviour by fussing her.  Mrs Justin could keep Cassie with her until she calmed down. When she did she was allowed to say hello.

If at any point Cassie started to bark or would not be “quiet” when told in a calm but firm voice, Cassie was to be gently removed from the room and placed in isolation until she was quiet, when she was she was allowed back into the room.

Barking outside was interrupted with a loud clap of the hands and “ah, ah” said firmly and then the command “quiet”. Owners were then to wait a few seconds and if Cassie remained quiet, give her a treat. Over time the “wait time” between the quiet command and the arrival of the treat was to be extended.

They were also advised to give Cassie plenty of vigorous exercise twice a day to get rid of some of her energy.

After only 7 day of working on these behaviour Mr. & Mrs. Justin informed me that the barking in the house had virtually stopped and the barking outside was 75% better.

Cassie was also a lot more responsive on walks and was now coming back when she was called.

Owners very satisfied