Is your puppy barking excessively and driving you insane?

Learn the secrets to stop your dog barking!

>>If you want a comprehensive guide to stopping your dog barking that covers many other problems, I recommend Secrets To Dog Training by Daniel Stevens. The first thing to understand is that barking is as normal to dogs as speaking is to a human being. It's only excessive and inappropriate barking that you need to be concerned about. If you want your puppy to stop barking completely, then maybe you aren't cut out for owning a dog. A barking puppy or dog is communicating something. You need to know what. You need to be a bit of a detective, to observe the body language, note what is going on in the environment and so on. In the first place, some breeds of dog bark more than others. This is something you need to think about before deciding on a puppy.

Guarding dogs like German Shepherds, Rottweilers and Dobermans were bred to bark when there is some kind of threat. Sporting breeds like Beagles and Bloodhounds bark because they are hunting dogs and have been bred to have an acute sense of smell and to bark at the scent of prey. Toy dog breeds tend to bark a lot (especially Pomeranians) and need careful training.

Reasons For Barking

There are many reasons why any dog will bark:

• boredom
• loneliness (separation anxiety)
• hunger or thirst
• need for toilet
• wants to play
• wants your attention or affection
• something or someone unfamiliar has entered his territory
• raising the alarm because he senses a danger of some kind
• fear
• too much pent up nervous energy because of a lack of sufficient exercise and/or mental stimulation
• lack of training.

Satisfy Your Dog's Basic Needs

It’s clearly not much use trying to train a dog when you are not satisfying his basic needs. You need to first make sure that he has enough food, exercise, affection and attention. He needs games and activity to give him enough stimulation. Dogs need a minimum of 30 to 45 minutes and up to one and a half hours exercise per day. Puppies need play but not formal walking until 6 months or more. Insufficient exercise is the number one cause of excessive barking.

The second most common cause of barking is that a dog is being left alone too much. Dogs are social animals and need to interact and need attention. They won't be content if left alone too much.

Be The Pack Leader

Once you are attending to all your dog’s basic needs, you should be the leader and not be dictated to by the dog. You should decide when it's time for your dog to go for a walk or to play games. If your dog barks at you continually because he wants to play and doesn't stop until you give in, this is clearly inappropriate barking. Your dog needs to respect your leadership. To give in is to reinforce this behavior in your dog. Instead you need to ignore your dog by turning your back or looking away and by not talking to him. You are basically communicating "you are not worthy of my attention when you behave in this way!"

This technique of "ignoring" can be applied whenever a dog is barking to get you to do something according to his own timetable rather than yours. As with all training consistency and persistence is crucial.

Another technique to make it clear to your dog that you want it to stop barking is to hold his muzzle with one hand and the collar with the other and hold his mouth shut. At same time use a command like "Quiet!" or "Hush!" The two hands are to prevent him shaking your hand away. Hold until he ceases trying to get free. When he becomes calm and has accepted your authority, you can let go and give him affection.

An important point is to never shout at your dog to get it to stop barking. You need to be calm if you want your dog to be calm.

If you’re looking for more detailed information on unwanted behaviors that your dog is exhibiting, I can recommend a great all-round guide to training puppies and dogs:

It’s a complete, A-Z manual for the responsible dog owner and goes through just about every problem dog behavior.