Training A Puppy To Bark Less

by Bonnie Meyer

There is nothing more frustrating than a puppy that barks at every little thing. The noise distracts you from your day, bothers your neighbors, and can even get you in trouble with a landlord or community agency.

Luckily your puppy is still young and is ready to be taught good habits to help your puppy bark less. Here are three things you can try to help your puppy get over his pesky noise making.

First, Use different keywords for behaviors you want to see less of. Instead of yelling “No!” or “Bad dog!” for every single unwanted behavior, choose specific ones for specific actions and make sure that you train anyone who interacts with your puppy to stay consistent.

For barking, I choose “Bark” because it’s easy to remember and simple to make sound severe at a high volume. True, this makes it sound like I’m getting into barking arguments with my puppy, but he knows that when I’m saying or yelling “bark,” it is because he is making noise that I don’t like.

Second, Use positive reinforcement where possible and harsh reinforcement once it’s clear your puppy is disobeying. It’s hard to reward a puppy for NOT barking. You can’t just go around giving your pup a treat or a pat whenever he is silent, you’d never get anything done! But, what you can do is to make sure that, once your puppy stops barking, he or she is rewarded.

Using negative reinforcement isn’t as habit-forming as positive reinforcement for specific behaviors, but what it can be is quick and effective. A spray bottle is an excellent option to discipline a puppy without hurting them. Putting water in a small spray bottle, the kind you can get from any supermarket or drug store, and giving your puppy a small squirt when he or she is barking will help curb their enthusiasm for crying in the moment. A bark collar can be a decent option along the negative reinforcement lines, The Pampered Pup’s list has several choices with humane training options. Of course, it will never be as good as our last trick.

Third, Replace those bad habits with good habits. The great dog whisperer, Ceaser Milan, always said that your dogs create rituals around events. A lot of times, these rituals can involve barking and so getting your puppy to bark less means you changing those rituals to include something that isn’t barking.

This tip is by far the most effective but is also the hardest. First, you need to work on understanding what your puppy’s rituals are and then understand the part that you play in them. If you understand how you are involved in those rituals, it is easier to get your puppy to bark less by replacing bad habits with good ones.

For example, if your puppy barks when you get home from work or school, think about how you engage with your puppy once you walk in the door. If you are smiling, yelling things like “good boy/girl” or “it’s so good to see you!” your puppy will feed off that energy and match it. Before you know it every time anyone walks through the door your puppy is at full throttle and barking.

Instead, replace that energy that you bring into the ritual, be calm and collected, do not look at the dog until you are settled and can calmly bring your puppy back into playtime.

In the end, the best advice for any sort of behavioral training will always be to find the behavior you want and reward it, and that once bad habits are formed, find a way to change that ritual into what you want.