How should I stop my dog from barking?
This is a question that we often get from sitters and owners who work with Rover. Help the community out by answering them in our forum!
2 Answers
A good way to address barking is by "breaking" the attention of whatever your pup is barking at. We can achieve this via frequent and increasingly challenging training sessions to encourage our pup to happily and voluntarily look at us on command. A good way to break this attention is via a high reward item such as favorite snack or toy. Once that's established, we can increase the difficulty by asking for a "sit"/longer "watch me" after gaining the attention.
Barking can also be exacerbated when a pup has a lot of pent-up energy and is bored. To address this, it's always best to understand your dog's energy level and exercise them (long walks, playing fetch, etc) accordingly.
Here's a good video that goes more in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFZ003dY8cU
Getting your dog to bark less will take time, work, practice, and consistency. It won’t happen overnight, but with proper techniques and time, you can see progress.