Nuisance Barking

Nuisance barking

There are many causes of barking. The five types of barking mentioned below are probably the most common.

1. Social isolation barking

Barking as a result of boredom and isolation, or perhaps more accurately the stress of isolation, is another common cause of nuisance barking. Barking which occurs when the owner is absent is sometimes assumed to indicate “separation anxiety”, which is actually a more specific problem. Being outside, with the isolation it entails, is the cause of nuisance barking in many dogs. The dog might be reacting to isolation, or might simply be more aware of sounds in the neighbourhood.

2. Reactive barking: barking in response to a stimulus

Reactive barking - that is, barking in response to a stimulus - can easily become nuisance barking because for highly reactive dogs, the act of barking can in itself be very stimulating and rewarding. The result is that the more it happens, the more rewarding it becomes and the more tuned in the dog becomes to a wide range of triggers. This type of barking gets worse if it is not dealt with, and tends to continue after the original stimulus has ceased to be important - if it ever was.

Dogs bark in response to a stimulus. It might be the sound of another dog barking in the neighbourhood, birds flying overhead or people and other dogs going past in the street. Once the dog has had this opportunity, and has been rewarded in some way, this type of barking can become a habit. This type of barking can easily be rewarded - the dog can get a buzz out of it, or be given a real boost when the birds or passing intruders are seen off the property.

You may have given your dog plenty of opportunities to relieve its feelings by barking while you are out. It is not until your neighbours start to relieve their feelings by complaining to you that you realise your dog barks. If you are out for long periods, make a point of asking your neighbours.

Excitement can be another stimulus to barking. This often occurs when young dogs with a strong instinct to chase are over-excited by noise and movement - typically when kids run around in the backyard, shrieking and throwing balls. A dog can easily become hyped up and start barking from excitement and sometimes frustration at not being allowed to get the ball.

One solution to this kind of barking is to remove the stimulus. If it is something you can control, do so, or if it is not, reduce the likelihood of the dog being exposed to the stimulus. In practice, what this means is that a dog will bark at all sorts of things when left in the backyard, but will not be stimulated by them inside the house. (See comments below on how to teach your dog to stay at home.)

Another is to de-sensitise the dog. This involves exposing the dog to the stimulus but reducing the dog’s reaction to it. For example, reward your dog for sitting calmly when the children run past.

When reactive barking becomes a problem, I often find that the dog is not getting enough feedback from the owners when they are present, so the dog becomes "self-trained" or trained by the environment to react to any sight or sound. The barking itself can be self-rewarding, so the more the dog does it, the more it gets reinforced, and it becomes a habit.

3. Attention seeking barking

You may have reinforced unwanted barking. If your dog is whinging in protest at being put outside, do not go and let the dog in. This obviously rewards barking. I have had clients with dogs that bark all night, because the owner initially rewarded them by getting out of bed, just in case the dog needed to go out. Others start barking at the crack of dawn because the owner started getting up early to feed the dog, to shut it up. Gradually the dog started barking for its breakfast earlier and earlier.
It is not always so obvious that the dog is being rewarded. If you go to your dog and shout at him or her you are trying to stop the dog. The attention nevertheless rewards the dog for barking. This gives your dog what he or she wants i.e. your company or attention.

Some spoilt, bossy dogs will bark in a demanding way. To prevent this, you should make sure that you are the pack leader and that the dog earns - not demands - the good things in life. And of course, you should not reward demanding barking by giving the dog what it wants. If your dog is already a demanding barker, for the sake of your sanity you will need to intervene to stop the barking. Just ignoring it may not be enough. Behaviour that is rewarded occasionally is strengthened more than behaviour that is rewarded every time. If your dog succeeds one in a hundred times, it will go on demanding for the next hundred times.

Barking to demand something is an example of behaviour that gets worse if works. If you respond to your dog’s demands, she will become more demanding. The best thing is to prevent this by not responding to demands in the first place. If you have already done so, you might have to be prepared to go through the extinction process - that is give your dog absolutely no response for demanding barking, even if it escalates, but do give her attention immediately she stops barking.

Another way to deal with it is to respond to her demand with one of your own. For example, tell her to go and lie down on her mat. Of course, you have to have taught her this in the first place. When she is lying down quietly, reward her in some way, by giving her what she wanted.

If your dog approaches in a bossy, demanding way, give one command only to sit, and reward briefly with praise or a pat if your dog responds. If the dog ignores the command and continues to be demanding, walk away rather than repeating the command. Withhold attention until the dog is willing to earn it rather than demand it.

4. Territoral barking

Territorial barking obviously occurs when an intruder comes into the dog’s territory. Usually neighbours will welcome this, because a dog that barks in a discriminating way will warn the neighbours of intruders. However, the dog’s sense of territory does not necessarily correspond with the owner’s property boundary. Sometimes territorial barking can become nuisance barking if the dog has access to a fence line, and forms the habit of running up and down the fenceline barking at people going past.

5. Barking in social situations

Barking at people

Nervousness, fear or feeling threatened (even when it doesn’t seem warranted) is a common cause of barking and biting in dogs. You should be concerned if your dog shows fear - by retreating, flattening of the ears, any snapping or snarling. Dogs like this should not be approached. They are likely to bite if they can’t get away. Many dogs will react to a person’s body language (such as standing up, leaning over or making eye contact) by feeling threatened.

If your dog shows warning signs - for example, if in a particular situation your dog barks or growls at someone - please do not  “correct”, reprimand or punish the dog. Warning signs such as growls are a safety valve. Try to defuse the situation, distract your dog and led him or her away. This achieves goal number one - damage control. Then reflect on the factors which might have triggered your dog’s reaction.

Establish leadership so that you can convey your emotional interpretation of the approaching person to your dog - in other words, is this a threatening person or a friendly looking one? When out in the street, practice being calm and relaxed, try not to tense up as your dog might pick this up.

Practice walking on a loose lead, with your dog paying attention to you. Practice stopping and sitting your dog. But of course, your dog already knows what sit means ... but let’s make sure you can practice it over and over again in the street with rewards, until the approach of another person virtually becomes a cue for the dog to look at you, sit and expect a treat.

When approaching a person, step to the side of the path, stand slightly side on to the person, give the person (and your dog) space, chat happily to your dog and to the person, and give your dog treats as the person passes.

Obviously you have to be very careful letting your dog come into contact with people. Pay very careful attention to the dog’s body language. What exactly is your dog uncomfortable about? What warning signs does the dog give? Try to be very precise about the triggers and the extent of your dog’s comfort zone.

Barking at other dogs

I emphasise the importance of having your dog's attention, especially via eye contact. This is often the first thing to go out the window:
•    dog takes eyes off handler
•    dog notices a distraction (such as other dog)
•    dog gives intense eye contact to distraction
•    other dog might react
•    dog might react to reaction; increase intensity of eyeballing, increase level of agitation, maybe building up to whinging, barking, leaping around, pulling on lead
•    often handler's attempt to control the dog increases level of agitation e.g. reining dog in, holding tight on lead, shouting

This can lead to the well-known phenomenon of lead aggression, where attempts to control the dog on lead increase agitation, excitement and aggression, which becomes associated with presence of another dog when on lead.

To counteract this, I try to teach loose lead handling, and a quiet, calm way of communicating to the dog. Early intervention is by breaking eye contact at earliest possible  moment (when you first notice and over-alert or hard stare), by turning the dog's head around. Head halters can help if dog and handler are used to them. Otherwise I recommend the left circle turn. Turn and move away, praising the dog for breaking eye contact with other dog and rewarding the dog for alternative behaviour such as returning eye contact to handler and resuming calmness or sitting. I recommend that people learn not to stand still and hold the dog tight.

Of course if the dogs in class can pass by each other in reasonable proximity they should be reinforced for that.

Some other specific situations

1. Barking at night
In my experience, the biggest cause of nuisance barking at night is that the dog sleeps outside. She receives more stimulation from her environment, every noise carries further. She can probably hear dogs barking in the distance, she responds to cats on the fence, and has to investigate every leaf that falls to the ground.

So why is she outside? The usual answers are:
1. the dog is not toilet trained
2. unruly behaviour when inside, and
3. destructive chewing.
These problems are usually easier to solve than the problems created by putting the dog out. Toilet train the dog, teach her to settle down, e.g. do a long down on a mat, and manage the chewing stage - various strategies are available.

I would always have a young dog restrained at night, usually by having them tethered but sleeping nearby. The tether can be a lead tied to the foot of the bed or a heavy table leg. It can be a chain lead if the dog is chewy. One night when the habit has become ingrained, you just forget to attach the tether, and the dog doesn't know or care, because they have developed the habit of “sleeping through”.

The other interesting thing about it is that a dog that is out outside at night will retain wild dog sleeping patterns - sleeping lightly, waking frequently, and becoming fully awake, which means activity and barking. The stress of being banished can add to the problem, as barking may a means of stress relief. If the dog is inside, they tend to take on more human sleeping patterns, which means waking less frequently (maybe four times a night instead of twenty times) and not becoming fully awake (you know, just mumble and roll over). Without the stimulus of the outside environment, there is no reason to bark.

There is another reason why some people don’t want to let the dog inside. They want it to be a guard dog. Right, so go with the flow.

Yes, I live alone and I feel the same about my dogs. That’s why I have them inside. They’re not much use to me outside when the burglar is coming through the bedroom window. Furthermore, no-one will take any notice of the dog that barks all night, apart from complaining about it. The dog barks at anything and everything. If the dog is inside, the owner can give the dog feedback about when it is appropriate to bark. The dog becomes very discriminating. My dogs rarely bark, but if they do my neighbours say they investigate because something must be happening.

There is another reason - shedding and people don’t like being knee deep in dog hair. They have a point. With two German Shepherds I just decide to put up with it. What I would say is “yes, that can be a problem - why don’t we teach Fluffbundle to stay in the back section of the house (uncarpeted) and settle down on a dog bed there. That will minimise the dog hair problem”.

P.S. The husband probably doesn’t hear the baby cry either.

2. Barking at the front door

Generally people don’t mind if their dog barks when someone comes to the front door, but they want the dog to stop when they get to the door, and then be friendly, if approproate, to welcome a visitor inside. Training for this involves teaching your dog to go with you to the door, rather than rushing headlong ahead of you, and to allow you to take control of deciding what to do about the visitor. The dog should be allowed to greet the visitor on your terms, subject to settled behaviour.

This incorporates several leadership techniques in one - earned rewards, controlling the greeting rituals, controlling entry and exit points to the territory.

Incorporate this into your regular activities - for example, when you are going out, or when you are going to the front door to let someone in.
•    approach the door with your dog;
•    if your dog goes ahead of you, clap and quickly reverse away from the door. Praise your dog for coming back to you.
•    approach the door again. If the dog waits beside you or sits, open the door.
•    if the dog starts to barge, quickly shut the door and reverse. Approach again.
•    repeat until your dog stands back or sits and waits for you to go first.
•    then invite your dog through. Reward in whatever way is appropriate e.g. by going for a walk, feeding etc.

This is not a sit-stay exercise. No commands are used.  The hand clap is a neutral stimulus (not a command). The shutting of the door and you reversing lets the dog learn from its actions. (“I don’t make any progress towards what I want by barging, in fact I go backwards.”).

When your dog has learned to do this as a general rule, get someone to come to the front door while you do a training exercise. Every time your dog rushes forwards barking, clap your hands and stay back away from the door. Praise your dog when he comes back to you. Start going towards the door again, only proceeding when your dog is walking with you, not going ahead.
Teach your dog to sit at least a metre back from the doorway. Having a mat there, and rewarding the dog for lying on the mat helps. Open the door when the dog is on the mat. If your dog gets up, close the door again. Repeat this until the dog will stay on the mat, and the visitor can come in and give the dog a reward.

It is much more effective to set this up as a step by step training procedure than to try to deal with an over-excited dog and a real life visitor at the same time.

How to deal with barking - some general points

1. Have the dog sleeping inside at night
The biggest cause of nuisance barking at night is being outside, and reacting to everything in the environment.
No doubt there will be reasons why the dog is outside: the owners believe that dogs belong outside, or more simply, there are problems such as toilet training, destructive chewing or unruly behaviour, which they have side-stepped by putting the dog outside. Generally it is easier to train the dog to behave inside the house than it is to cope with the problems caused by putting the dog outside.

2. Practice giving your dog feedback when you are at home.
Use a neutral interrupter such as a hand clap followed by praising the dog for stopping and coming back to you. Reward and then divert the dog into an alternative activity. Give the dog feedback - what's happening? Oh someone's coming to the front door, thanks for letting me know, OK, it's a friend, now settle down and say hello nicely" or, as the case may be, "what's that? Oh, just a leaf falling off a tree, we're not interested in that, hey look at me, I'm doing something else over here". This way the dog learns how to interpret the world, what's worth barking at and what isn't.

Some of this will carry over to when the owners are out, if you do enough of it. You have to interrupt the dog often enough to break down any association that falling leaf = cause for incredible excitement and a torrent of barking; instead create the association that falling leaf = boring, oh what are you doing over there? For those who are academically inclined, this is counter conditioning.

3. Give your dog more interesting things to do when home alone.
There are many strategies for “Home alone” dogs nowadays. Buster cubes, kongs stuffed with food, toys which in some way give the dog feedback, burying food or toys in a sandpit, scattering food around the garden etc. so the dog has to work on it. This will give the dog something else to react to. If the dog spends more time on quiet activity with food and toys, he or she may be more inclined to sleep through the night, which is an added bonus.

4. The importance of leadership

Leadership is important to all dogs. Failure of the owner to establsih leadership is an element in many behavioural problems. One key aspect of leadership is for the owner to teach the dog to earn the attention and rewards it receives, rather than getting everything for free or on demand. In addition, the owner should give the dog guidance and feedback for its behaviour.
I think there are people who don't give the dog enough attention as well as those who overdo it. Some owners never notice what the dog is doing, and don't give the dog any feedback, either for good or bad behaviour. The dog then becomes self-trained by the environment and learns that passive toys and passive people should be ignored because noticing them leads to nothing.
Leadership requires the owner to be more aware of what the dog is doing, and to take more responsibility for initiating activities and guiding the dog into appropriate behaviour. Teach your dog “what is the appropriate attitude to take when approached by a person or another dog?” Unless the dog is oriented to you in the first place, you will have no hope of communicating to your dog "that person is a friend, so just relax" - the dog will follow its own gut reaction.

A dog will have less need to take the initiative and react to a situation by barking as the dog’s confidence in the handler increases.

5. Avoid punishment

If you have a problem with nuisance barking, avoid simple punishment as a way of dealing with it. Punishment creates “owner-absent effects” - behaviour that is suppressed in the presence of the owner/punisher e.g. nuisance barking, dogfighting, housesoiling, chewing often becomes more of a problem in the owner’s absence. Distraction and counterconditioning are more effective in carrying over to situations in which the owner is absent.

Specific training to stop nuisance barking

1. Distraction and interruption

Some trainers recommend the use of the throw chain to correct a dog for barking. A chain thrown at the dog, without the dog realising where the chain came from may be effective as a shock tactic, but this is not a method I recommend. Apart from the possibility of injury to the dog, a method based on pain or fear is not satisfactory. Not only this, most people find it impossible to throw the chain accurately at the right time. It is even harder to sneak up on a barking dog and toss a chain over the fence to startle the dog.

Interrupting the dog by hand clapping is very effective and not likely to cause fear or injury.

2. Counter conditioning

The counter conditioning means that instead of associating a stimulus with the response of barking, the barking is interrupted and an alterative behaviour is established. This method of training involves diverting the dog away from barking by making a sudden startling noise (such as clapping your hands) just at the moment the behaviour starts, and diverting the dog into a different reaction.

For example, as soon as your dog interrupts her barking for a second, praise her and call her to you. Give her an alternative response for which she can be praised, such as sitting quietly or paying attention to you. This works if there is a specific stimulus and you are there to divert the dog. The earlier you intervene, the better, as soon as your dog notices the stimulus. For example, the dog is given training to come when called, using food rewards. Then as soon as your dog starts to move towards the fence to bark, you give a quick hand clap, which startles the dog. At this point, you call your dog, and praise her for coming to you. The dog is never allowed to experience the full thrill of barking - that response is switched onto something more acceptable, namely attention to you.

Generally though, I have found that teaching the dog to respond to a hand clap as a interrupter is very effective. There is no special power in having an ultrasonic sound - the trick is in interrupting the dog at the earliest possible opportunity.

3. Training in the hand clap

Start by using a hand clap as an interrupter when your dog is distracted in a minor way, for example, just having a sniff in the garden. As soon as you get a reaction, even just a flicker of an ear, or a turning of the head, start to praise enthusiastically, and call your dog. Reward him with food. Practice this with gradually increasing levels of distraction.

Then use your hand clap to interrupt your dog from barking in reaction to a stimulus. Always praise the dog for responding and then reward quietness. The earlier you intervene, the better. Over time, you will find that not only in the dog easier to interrupt, but he will be less inclined to bark in the first place. Then be sure to reward the absence of barking.

4. Reward the cessation or absence of barking

I have found that free shaping can sometimes be quicker in getting an initial change in behaviour. This simply means rewarding the absence of barking, and gradually obtaining longer periods of silence which can be rewarded. This is an alternative to doing nothing about barking, and also an alternative to rushing around yelling at the dog and trying to force it to sit. People with barking dogs have rarely tried rewarding silence - they have usually either ignored both barking and silence, or tried some ineffectual reprimand for barking.
Sometimes I will instruct people to simply hold the lead and keep still. This is a difficult instruction for people to follow. But if they can do it, I then click and shape the absence of riotous behaviour - no barking, four on the floor, standing calmly for a millisecond, standing calmly for longer, sitting, lying down etc. This can progress very quickly, is so effective it amazes people, and it allows me to talk to people and get a bit of background, and explain a few basics to them. Then I can let them have a go.
In order to bring about some silence to reward, you can also act more directly to interrupt the dog, for example luring or inducing the silence, rather than waiting for it to be offered.

To lure or induce the silence, I would try a piece of food on the pup's nose, maybe even giving it to him if he stops barking for long enough to sniff it. Then I would gradually shape the silence from that point. You might only get a microsecond of silence, but you have to start somewhere. Even extending the time by holding a piece of food to the puppy's nose and giving him a slow nibble, then letting him have the rest can help. Anything to make a start, and give you something to reward.

Then I would extend the luring/inducing process to bringing the pup's head around a little, i.e. turning his attention away from whatever has his attention and towards the handler. Breaking eye contact with the surroundings and turning to look at the handler is really important.

As you build up the interruption to barking, return of attention to handler and extended  duration of the silence, you are developing an alternative behaviour which receives primary reinforcement.

5. Extinction

Extinction is the opposite of acquisition of behaviour - the “unacquisition” of behaviour that has been reinforced in the past. You lose the behaviour by no longer reinforcing it. To be more precise, you lose the effects of previous reinforcement. The distinction is important, because extinction does not necessarily eliminate the behaviour altogether. The dog will go back to the previous “spontaneous” behaviour. For example, if you have accidentally rewarded your dog for barking, the dog will bark more. If you stop giving rewarding feedback to your dog, the extinction process will undo that increase in barking - but your dog will still bark under other circumstances. Extinction undoes the effects of reinforcement - it does not undo all other influences on behaviour.

It is normal when you are using extinction for the behaviour to “get worse before it gets better”. What happens typically is that instead of fading away gracefully, you get what is called an “extinction burst”, a major escalation of the behaviour in the short term.

I had a good example in a class recently.

Whinge, whinge, whinge. I asked the dog’s owner to get up and walk away. Another class member held the dog’s lead, but didn’t interact with him. Quietness for a moment - the owner returned. I suggest returning after a moment’s silence at the beginning of training, so you can have some behaviour to reinforce, no matter how small. But I would increase the period of silence as part of the shaping process. The dog after a few incidents began to stay quiet for longer. If he got up to three “good boys” (used as a keep going signal) he would be released to move around or play. Then he would be asked to settle again.

Whinge, whinge, whinge. Owner walks away. Whinging stops sooner. Silence lasts for longer, but not always long enough for a release. However, we’re getting shorter whinges, stopping sooner, and a few more releases. I breathe a sigh of relief. The class is impressed. It’s obviously working.

Then we start to go downhill. The dog starts to whinge *as* the owner is returning. She leaves again. When she gets back he resumes whinging sooner. No more releases. Whinging intensifies when she is away from him and takes longer to stop.

People shift in their seats and look uncomfortable. Aha! I say. Isn’t this wonderful? He’s getting lot’s of experience at finding out that this behaviour no longer works. I explain the extinction burst, how we can expect this behaviour to get worse before it gets better. This is especially true of unwanted behaviour that has been reinforced in the past, rather than unwanted barking that is caused by something else, such as reactivity to an external stimulus. Eventually, we were able to end the class at a point when the dog settled down, had a release to play with tug toy, and then settled enough to almost go to sleep. Yippee! Let’s get out of here before anything else happens.

Extinction is a good tool or process to be aware of, and I am currently on a “make more use of extinction” kick. The problem is, you have get through the extinction burst (and some of them can be mighty), and you have to make the extinction complete - i.e. the dog must learn from experience that barking for attention *never* works. Not that this hardly ever works, but once in a blue moon, you get sick of the process and give in. This teaches the dog to persist, which is an incredibly powerful form of conditioning - persisting with the behaviour almost forever in the hope of getting a reward that is “just around the corner”.
Somehow we seem to better at achieve this goal with unwanted behaviour that we are with achieving it when we reinforce wanted behaviour! So if you are dealing with nuisance barking which has arisen because of accidental reinforcement in the past, be prepated for it to get worse before it gets better, and then to be eliminated entirely.

Are we changing the cause or the effect?

One long-standing concern I have about the use of “behaviour modification” techniques is that they may be treating the symptoms rather than the cause.

For example, this is how barking can be modified:
•    interruption by means of distraction when the dog starts to bark;
•    rewarding the dog for stopping;
•    diverting the dog’s attention to some other behaviour, and rewarding that;
•    rewarding the dog for not barking in a situation where barking used to occur;

However, none of these address the issue: why is the dog barking in the first place? I prefer to attempt to remove the cause as well as considering ways to modify the effect.  There are many possible causes:
•    boredom, stress-relief
•    reaction to stimulus
•    attention-seeking
•    reinforcement as a result of receiving a successful response to the barking
•    undirected excitement
and others. Each of these suggests a different approach:
•    reduce the dog’s stress or boredom,
•    change the way the dog reacts to a stimulus,
•    do not reinforce barking by giving the dog attention, letting the dog in, or giving food on demand;
•    channel excitement or territorial behaviour more appropriately.

Removing the cause means that you don’t end up with a bored, stressed-out dog that becomes destructive or licks itself obsessively as a form of stress-relief, rather than barking.

Summary/checklist: nuisance barking

[1]    Identify the causes of the barking and circumstances in which your dog barks. Select a solution tailored to your circumstances.
[2]    Take barking at people or other dogs as a warning sign, and act on it. 
[3]    If it is a case of reactive barking, decide how you want your dog to react and give as much feedback as possible. Teach your dog to stop when you interrupt him or her with a hand clap. Intervene as early as you can, and praise the moment your dog stops. Reward the absence of barking in reaction to distractions. Reinforce calmness.
[4]    If your dog is barking in a bossy, demanding or attention-seeking way, withdraw your attention and make this and all other rewards dependent on quietness and attentive responses to you.
[5]    If your dog has developed the habit of barking through accidental reinforcement, reverse this process by use of extinction - i.e. giving no reward for barking. Be prepared to see the process through, and expect it to get worse before it gets better.
[6]    If your dog barks uncontrollably or excessively in particular situations, such as when visitors come to the door, you can teach your dog to react more calmly, and introduce a specific routine such as not opening the door until your dog is quiet, and having the dog sit back from the door when people come in, then go and lie down on a mat in the living room when your visitor comes in.
[7]    If your dog barks when left alone or isolated, go through a range of steps to make him or her feel more comfortable.
[8]    If possible, reduce the likelihood of reactive barking, home alone barking or barking at the fence by having your dog inside the house (or at least with access to part of the living area) at night, when you are at home and when you go out.
[9]    Build your puppy or older dog’s capacity to be quiet and stay calm when left alone by starting with short times and increasing the time gradually.
[10]    Provide adequate mental stimulation as well as exercise for your dog, and try to include activities at home, and toys for environmental enrichment, to make staying at home as positive as possible.

© Kaye Hargreaves 2008, may be reproduced with acknowledgement; www.kayehargeaves.com