How to Stop Your Dog From Barking Excessively

Foreign. Hey guys, Dr. Lara here today. I'm here with Ginger. Ginger. You may have seen her in some of my videos. You may have not. This is one of my dogs. She is a 8 year old female spade cattle Cooper. So she's a King Charles Cavalier mixed with a toy poodle. And so one of the things that little dogs do is they like to bark. So the topic of the video today is how to help your dog stop barking and how to work with your dog with trying to stop barking. Now I will preface this for you. Getting your dogs to improve behaviors is something that is probably one of the most challenging things that, you know, we try to do in veterinary medicine. And the reason I feel that is is because a lot of the times what we end up trying to do is we end up trying to go ahead and we try to stop behaviors, but instead of trying to get to the underlying cause and understand why it is that behavior is actually happening. So for example, one of the things that a lot of times when I was taught when growing up was if a dog is growling, I would tell that dog, especially around my family members, don't growl. But in actuality, that's actually one of the worst things that you could actually do because what ends up actually happening is the dog's stress will escalate. So first they'll probably start panting, maybe start shying away, something like that. Then they might start going ahead. If one of the family members, in my case, one of my kids, if they start approaching Ginger, she'll escalate it to a growl. Then if that doesn't stop them, she may show her teeth and maybe even snap at them. And then the final escalation is to go ahead, actually bite. And so if you go ahead and you try to train your dog to stop that growling behavior, what ends up happening is your dog will actually go ahead and, and skip the growling or they'll just growl in their head and then they'll jump to the snapping or the biting. And so it's not necessarily that, it wouldn't necessarily be their fault if you go ahead and train them to not growl and then go ahead and they have them growl. So that is just an example of one of the behaviors. Now when you have a dog that's barking, there are a lot of potential triggers that could potentially be going on. They could be going ahead. In Ginger's case, what she likes to do is she likes to bark when there's somebody in walking across the street in front of our house for some sort of. And she's most likely just trying to alert us and also alert whoever else is in the house that there's somebody there. Now, one of the things that you would want to do if you go ahead and you want your dog to stop barking or learn to be calm is you would want to reinforce when they're actually being calm. And so one of the ways that you can do that is when they're at home, you can go ahead if they're just relaxing, that kind of stuff. You can use a command or a word like calm, chill out, whatever it is you want and give them some sort of positive reinforcement. That positive reinforcement is going to depend on whether or not it's a treat, whether or not are you looking for a treat? Looks like you're looking for a treat. Whether or not it's praise like good girl, Ginger, good girl. Or if it's something like getting them all riled up, like so things like that. Now, some dogs, they'll like, they'll love food and they'll hate playing. Other dogs, they're whatever about food and they don't really care so much about playing, but they love attention. Ginger, for example, is one of those dogs where she likes praise. Petting, she likes food. And play is definitely she likes to play. So I would say food first for her play and then praise is probably the last thing. And so that's going to be really, really important when you're going ahead and trying to get your dog to stop barking is to make sure that you know what motivates them and then try and motivate them with several things, not just one thing. The other thing is when you're motivating them with positive reinforcement, make sure that the positive reinforcement is only used that specific positive reinforcement, whether it's. In her case, Ginger really likes blueberries. Only give them blueberries when they are doing the calm behavior, the not barking behavior, you give them blueberries. For everything else, the blueberry will not have that much value. Same thing with toys. If there's a special toy, only use that toy when they're exhibiting the non barking or calming behavior. One of the other things is going ahead and not expecting the that if there is a big trigger. And that means when I say trigger, I mean something that is causing them to react and bark. So that leads to a kind of tangent where you need to go ahead and you need to pay attention to what exactly it is that your dog is causing your dog to bark. Whether it's the dump truck, whether it's somebody ringing the doorbell, whether it's somebody knocking on the door, whether it's somebody going ahead and walking across the street. Just different things like that. Those are some of the things that trigger Ginger. And so what you would want to do is you want to start with something that seems to be the least likely to trigger them and then start it at a low volume. So like a. And then good girl, good girl. And then good girl. That's a good girl. Then. So see, you see her looking around because these are typically things that will trigger her. The other thing is recognizing when she's in different environments. Normally, if I did that at my house, she definitely would have been barking. And so you need to be pay attention to several variables when your dog is barking. So it is going to be something that is going to require time. It is going to be something that's going to require effort. Now, some people might say, well, why don't I just get a shock collar? Why don't I get a citronella collar where it goes ahead and it does a puff of citronella whenever they go ahead and bark? Or why isn't it that they. They have these. There's a product called Wolf Stop or something like that. And what it does is it emits a really high pitch sound that's supposed to be like piercing to. The drums are very, very painful to. And mostly dogs are the ones that pick up on it. So that is not really the mentality that seems to work long term. And the other issue is that you may end up creating anxiety in your dog. So now you may have temporarily gotten rid of this biting barking behavior, but now you may end up creating this anxiety and then they might start becoming destructive. And so then the barking may not have sounded so bad. I know, I know. Right, right. Literally speaking, a lot of the times what you may end up needing to do also is you may end up needing to medicate your dogs. Now, I'm not down with medicating dogs if we don't have to. The other thing that you have to realize is sometimes what we will do is we will get dogs on stuff like Crozac. The generic name is Fluoxetine. That's one of the most common drugs that we will use to go ahead and reduce some anxiety. And if that seems to work for them, or if they have to have a combination of drugs, you want to have them on those drugs probably for about six months and then go ahead and slowly come off those drugs, lowering the dosage of the drugs to the dose that's still effective. But the lowest Dosage. This is something that is very, very important to recognize. Also, if you're just using drugs and you're not doing any sort of behavioral modification going ahead, positively reinforcing them when they're doing those positive behaviors that you want, then. I know, I know, I know. Then what will end up happening is you only have a 15% chance of success versus if you do behavioral modification as well as going ahead and giving them drugs, then you have a much higher chance of success. So that being said, this is just, you know, a preliminary talk on how to work with your dog on getting them to stop barking and to recognize, you know, some of the different triggers for them that cause them to bark. The other thing, by the way, that you could do is they have this little toy, and I saw it on Amazon, and what it is, it's a remote control, treat release thing that goes ahead and you can positively reinforce your dog when you are at a distance or something like that. And so that's something that may help. That may also require you having a camera at home to watch your dog. When your dog actually does exhibit the calm behavior and they stop barking. Because most dogs will actually end up stopped barking if it's purely just barking and there's no anxiety associated with it. If there is anxiety associated with it, that could go on for a long time. So those are just some few tips on how to go ahead and work with your dog, understand your dog, know some of your options, and at the end of the day, if it is something that you're finding very challenging, I do recommend that you go see a veterinary behaviorist, which is essentially a doggy psychologist and psychiatrist in one, because they are able to prescribe jokes. If you guys found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe. And if you know somebody who needs to watch it, please share it with them. Thanks a lot. Take care and be safe.