Does a dog really know if he’s in trouble?  And what does that really mean?

Just because your dog tucks his tail and runs, does that mean he knows he’s been bad, or is it something else, behavior specialists call an avoidance response?

For an interesting perspective on this question check out this article:

Do dogs know when they’ve done something naughty?

You might realize that if your dog is consistently “misbehaving” and you think he’s doing it on purpose… that you have a much bigger problem on your hands.

This is often a sign that you are not communicating clearly with your dog in a way he understands, and that you probably are effectively listening to what he wants either.

This is a common problem with people who try to stop dog barking.

Their dog’s will tuck tale and run when their owners yell at them over a long period of time.  This causes the dog to fear the owner, and doesn’t necessarily mean the dog knows what he did was bad.

And it certainly doesn’t even begin to address the owners complete lack of understanding the underlying issue of what’s really causing the dog’s barking in the first place.

Take this as a reminder to always try to get at the root ‘emotional’ cause of your dog’s problem if you want to have the most success.

For any of you struggling with how to stop dog barking, especially dog’s who bark at certain types of noise, I thought this video would be helpful:

What I really like about this video is when the trainer talks about how we need to realize that the reason our dog’s are barking is to communicate an underlying emotion.

Traditional training techniques seek to PUNISH the communication, where newer training strategies like the one being used by the trainer in this video, attempt to change the emotional reaction that causes the annoing communication.

So the next time you find yourself wanting to punish your dog’s communication, try to think about what the underlying emotion of that behavior is.

Treat your dog’s emotions like personal workout trainers approach working with a new client who’s never been in a gym and who’s bodies aren’t in the physical condition to go all out right away.

Our dog’s emotions are a LOT like a person’s muscles who’ve never been to the gym… they need to practice on some easy weights before they’re ready for the big stuff.

I thought this video expressed that perfectly, which is why I wanted to share it with you.

Please leave me any questions if you have them!

Today I thought I’d share a great article on Retraining Manic Alert Barking.

In this article, Debi Davis really lays out some interesting points about why using suppressive or punishment techniques don’t work to stop dog barking.

She believes that when you are dealing with a dog who just ‘locks on’ to a person or thing and continues to bark at it, that adding more emotion to the situation actually reinforces it…. positive or negative.

To put it in my own words, and forgive me Debi if this is NOT what you mean, but it’s almost like the thing that causes a dog to Manic bark is the amount of “heightened emotions”… or in her words “stress”.

Because stress can be both positive and negative, a dog who get’s ‘positively’ stressed when he sees a person walk by the car he’s in at the grocery store parking lot has more stress, then if he were in a state of rest… and if you then have an owner come in and reprimand the dog, what does that do?

It ads MORE stress.

Stress can become addicting, and trains the dog to continually expect, prepare and get ready for more and more stress, with each day the Manic Barking behavior is attempted to be stopped with training techniques that add more stress to the situation.

Debi’s article puts it more clearly then I can though, so I’ll just shut up and let you go read it.  Here’s the link again:

Retraining Manic Alert Barking

One common problem people run into when trying to stop dog barking is fear.  It is very common for your dog to bark at things that he’s not used to seeing.  In my Hands Off Dog training course I showed you how I addressed this issue with my Golden Retriever Bauer.

When I brought my dog home he was 8 weeks old, and we had just moved into a new neighborhood where there was LOTS of construction going on.

While this could have been annoying to some dog owners, I treated it as a fantastic opportunity for learning.

My dog had never heard air compressors, or see men walking on top of roofs or using staple guns before.

It was all very scary to him… so I taught him the “go touch it” trick.

To teach the “go touch it” trick I first trained my dog to touch something on cue, this is called targeting.

I would practice telling my dog to touch all sorts of objects, in exchange for a treat.

While most of us really cold care less if our dog touches objects or not, it is a phenomenol tool to use when you notice your dog becoming afraid of something.

I found this helpful video on youtube that shows the process with a live dog.

Enjoy!

If you’ve got a dog who just won’t shut up when the doorbell rings I wanted to point you in the direction of a short but good article from a trainer who trained her Border Collie how to stop barking at the door.

You can see her article here: Solutions for Doorbell Barking

The thing I like about this short article is that it addresses the dog’s emotional state, and the hi adrenalin rush that some dogs get from hearing the doorbell ring, and offers you a simple replacement behavior for how to reduce a dog’s adrenalin rush when he hears the doorbell ring.

However, I do think it’s important to note that the reason this stratagy was effective, was because the trainer new the exact cause of the behavior she was trying to cure.

The Border Collie in this article did NOT have an aggression or territorial issue.  She had an adrenalin rush issue, which is why the the technique was effective at finally being able to stop the barking.

If the Border Collie was barking out of territorial aggression, then this training example would not have been effective, and she would have had to take a different approach that addressed her dog aggression issues instead of her ability to stay calm.

Finally there is a proven way to stop dog barking without having to resort to the old school training methods of punishing your dog, using shock collars or other negative methods.

In this blog post I decided to share with you an answer to one of my clients frustrations about not being able to stop her dog’s barking.

I think you’ll love the suggestions I gave her, and will find them extremely effective ways to stop dog barking once and for all!

Enjoy!

*** Question From A Reader ***

Hi Chet,

I was wondering if you are able to help I have asked my vet about this. Every Friday morning around 5am garbage trucks come by. One is for normal rubbish and one is recycling. I sometimes wake up before they get close to our home. But when the truck is within two or three houses Snoopy starts to bark constantly and I have tried to get him to be quite but he will not listen. The only way I can stop him barking is by holding him by the collar and lightly holding his mouth closed. Otherwise he constantly barks. I received Snoopy Border Collie x Blue Cattle at nine months. And he is now seven. It has been a lot of garbage trucks. I am not sure whether it is a habit he has gotten into or something is aggravating him. If it is habit how to I break it. I love him dearly I would like to be able to solve this problem for me and the neighbors. I hope you can suggest some ideas to help this situation. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated as I have no idea how to tackle this situation. I have had a look at the barking video which had great ideas but I am not sure how to apply it to this situation.

Yours sincerely

Anne Sinclair

>>> My Comments:

Anne, there are several reasons why a dog barks.  He could be afraid, he could be territorial, bored, just be letting you know about something new, or he could be excited… and on and on.

Most of the time it’s a combination of your dog being a bit of an Emotional Wussie, along with continually trying to always use, force, restraint or negative controlling types of intervention… and never really seeing results.

Let’s first talk about the Emotional Wussie part

Helping dogs be more resilient Emotionally is what my Emotion Training program is all about.  It’s really best described as an 8 week Emotional Conditioning program that would be a lot like you or I doing an 8 week exercise or conditioning program.

In a traditional conditioning program that you or I would take part in, we’d go into a see a personal trainer, they’d test us to see how much stress or resistance our bodies could handle without breaking down…

Then they customize a conditioning program that’s designed to put low levels of stress on our bodies to help them build up their ability to handle more and more weight.

Well your dog’s Emotions work the same way.

In truth, every living creatures emotions work the same way.

If a human is afraid of public speaking, and they want to become more Emotionally Conditioned to handle the stress of speaking in front of others, it’s a good idea to start by speaking in front of just one other person, then a small group of close friends in a speaking class, then to strangers, etc.

You don’t just throw that scared public speaker in front of 100,000 people with no build up.

They can’t handle it Emotionally.

Their Emotions haven’t been built up to the point where they can remain calm in that kind of a situation.

So that’s what my Emotion Training program does for dogs.

It strategically puts them in low emotional stress situations so they can gradually build up their “Emotional Muscles” to the point where a dog that normally would run in fear if another dog approached him, could calmly walk by a violently barking dog and remain calm.

It’s a program that I REALLY think all dog owners need to take their dogs through, and I’m VERY proud of it, it’s definitely my best work yet.

You can learn about my Emotion Training program here”

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com/dreamdog

So that’s the first part you’ve got to get straightened out if you want to stop your dogs barking.  You have to get your dog to a place where he’s not an Emotional Wussie, before you use a few advanced training strategies that I’ll share.

One of these strategies I learned from Karon Pryor, an excellent trainer, and pioneer of positive reinforcement training in animals… where she teaches how to put being quiet on cue.

To do this she recommends that you do two things.

1) You first put barking on cue

2) You then put “Stop Barking” on cue

You may first think it’s a bit odd to put a behavior that you DON’T want on cue; but here’s why you might want to consider it.

In Karen’s book, Don’t Shoot The Dog, Karen talks about when she used to do a lot of work training dolphins.

One dolphin in particular had an annoying habit of sinking to the bottom of the pool when it didn’t want to train anymore.

I’m sure you can imagine that a dolphin sitting at the bottom of a pool is a hard thing to work with… so what they discovered is that if they started to reward the behavior of sinking to the bottom of the pool, and actually put it on cue…

They noticed that the dolphin no longer sank to the bottom of the pool *unless* it was cued to do so.

Isn’t that interesting?

This putting a *bad* behavior on cue has had the same effect in tons of other training examples, like barking dogs.

Many dogs who are taught to bark on cue STOP barking unless cued to do so.

>NOTE: It’s not a 100% thing, and works best if the dog is not an emotional wussie.

If you want to know how to put a behavior like this on cue, you can see how to do that in my Hands Off Dog training program here:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com

But here’s the clever twist…

If you think about it, the BEST way to train an animal to do something is *reward* it after it’s done a behavior that you want to do.

And since we’ve just trained a dog to DO something we don’t want him to do, we now simply ask our dog to bark, then…

Suddenly throw your hand in his face saying stop — No need to yell though

This sudden movement will catch your dog off guard and stop his barking.

Immediately click the clicker and toss him a treat… because he just stopped barking when you asked him to.

The real power and genius of this drill is that it trains your dog to bark when he’s NOT in an emotionally irritated state… so he’s more likely to stop barking because he’s not busy barking at some intruder who’s ventured onto your front lawn.

It’s allowing him to build up to that point!

You can then repeat this over and over, asking your dog to stop barking, then bark, then stop again, each time asking for quiet longer and longer, until the behavior is fully learned!

It’s a SUPER clever strategy that is *super* effective at stopping barking.

>REMEMBER: You still need to keep your dog’s emotional state of mind, in mind.  If your dog’s barking all the time because he’s bored in your backyard this strategy isn’t going to work well and requires other techniques like I talk about in my Hands Off Dog training program, here:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com

Don’t forget that every great technique can only be great when used in the optimal situation, and you really need to asses your dogs motivation for barking before you can come up with a plan to help break him of this bad and annoying habit.

Hopefully that helps!

-Chet

P.S. If you tried this technique and it worked for you, tell me about it, I’d love to share your success with other readers to help motivate them to want to fix their dog’s problems too!

Just send your story to info@thedogtrainingsecret.com and I’ll include it in a future newsletter.

Just wanted to drop all my blog readers a quick note and let you know that the free stop dog barking video I promised you has just been released.

You can find it here:

The Stop Dog Barking Video

I think I really over delivered on this video, as it’s a tick over an hour long, and covers a LOT of different strategies for how you can stop your dog’s barking fast.

Enjoy!

Chet

Right now I’m putting the finishing touches on a presentation I’ll be doing next week to help you stop your dog’s barking.

I’ve got a lot of great tips and techniques that are SUPER effective at putting a stop to dog barking dog FAST!

But to make this presentation even stronger, I want to hear about your most pressing barking problem that you want help fixing.

This presentation is for you and so I want to make sure it covers the types of barking that YOU struggle with, and I don’t want to leave anything out.

I want to know what causes your dog to bark, what have you tried to stop it… and what have you tried already that hasn’t worked.

I’ll then take the top 10 main barking issues and create a step-by-step outline for you to follow on how to eliminate each type of barking that you struggle with.

So please post a comment to this blog post describing the type of barking you’d like me to help you fix.

Then make sure you sign up to be on our announcement list when we release this barking presentation to the public by filling out your name and email address in this form below.

Fill out this form if you want me to notify you when my Stop Barking Program is released sometime next week:

Today I want to talk to you about a concept that I call “Training a Greeting Routine”, so that he stops barking at strangers who come into his territory… specifically people who come to the front door.

And I think it’s important before I show you one of the ways for how to make a dog stop barking at people who come to your home to understand a couple of principles.

First, I believe that in MOST, but not all cases, your dog is barking at people for instinctive reasons.  Reasons that are engrained in him from his genetics, passed down by his wolf ancestry.  It’s their instinct to protect their territory, and I think it’s helpful to realize that it’s an instince and not that your dog is mean, or annoying, or some other humanesque trait that we want to call him by.

It’s simply a natural behavior, that he’s following through on.

There’s a good book that I recommend you read on this topic that takes this concept of genetic pass down traits even further, called “The Other End Of The Leash”.  It’s one of those MUST reads if you want to better understand your dog.

And in the case of dogs barking at people coming into their territory, one of the reasons he may be doing this is because it’s normally the job of the leader of the dog pack to protect his territory.  So if your dog doesn’t think you’re fulfilling your guard dog duties your dog may try to fill the void naturally.

But that’s a deeper topic for another time.

The second principle I’d like you to understand is a pinciple that I call the “One Track Mind Theory”.

The one track mind theory states that an animal seems to have a hard time doing two things at the same time.  For example, dog’s don’t seem to be very good at barking at a stranger while performing a behavior like a down, shake, or go to your mat.

It’s doesn’t always hold true, but it does seem to work most of the time, especially if you ask the dog to do a specific behavior before he get’s too emotional.

Professional animal trainers would call this reinforcing an alternative behavior, and they’ve been using it to sucessfully mange animals in theme parks all over the world.

And in this post I want to give you a little better idea of how you can use this same concept to train your dog to perform a “Greeting Routine”, or an alternative behavior to barking, when he sees people coming up to your door.

The first step to training this behavior is to teach your dog the ‘down’ command.

I’m not going to go into how to do that in this post, but let’s just say that you want him to learn down, and learn how to stay in the down position until you release him.

But that’s just the beginning.

Even if your dog performs an excellent down/stay for you in your living room.  That doesn’t mean he’ll do it when he’s all amped up emotionally when that doorbell rings.

You have to build him up to that point.

You need to start inviting people over to your home to be in the room as you train your dog.  Slowly make your dog’s environment more and more distracting, until your dog will hold a down/stay even with a 6 year old’s birthday party going on and pizza being spilled on the floor.

Remember to set your dog up for success, and only add more distractions when you notice your dog being able to handle them.  And build them up to the point where no matter where you go, or who you’re around your dog will listen to you.

Then you’re ready to tackle the greeting routine.

This can be done several different ways, but one way is to train your dog to lay down on his mat when he hears the doorbell ring.

At first you’ll have a partner help you ring the doorbell, followed immediately by your cue to lay down on his mat or bed, and then followed by a great tasty treat as a reward.

Over time your dog will learn to realize that the doorbell is the cue for laying down on his mat, and you’ll want to teach him to stay their for longer and longer periods of time before he earns his reward.

You know you’re dog get’s it when you hear the doorbell ring, and on the first try your dog will go over and lay on his bed.

Try to get your guests to give the dog ZERO attention, not to look at him, and not to pet him, until you’ve sat down… at which point you can release your dog and have your guest give him the treat you snuck into their hand when they walked in (without your dog noticing).

What this will do overtime is teach your dog that people coming to the door are the CUE to do another behavior, and that he always get’s tasty rewards if he’ll hold that behavior until released.

It’ll take some time, but working on building a ‘Greeting Routine’ for your dog will help him be less territorial of your home and really help curb the barking at your front door.

Until Next Time…

Happy Training!

Chet