# How Do I Stop Barking Behavior?



## Michigan Gal (Jun 4, 2019)

Be prepared with treats in your pocket. When he barks, let him bark once, then get excited and praise him, give treat, say "thank you". You want to interrupt the barking so that he goes from too much barking to barking just once. If you can be right beside him when he gives his first bark, so much the better. Then, you can put the treat right to his noise to distract him. Once he gets the idea, you can be a couple of steps away. You say "thank you" and this is his cue to go to you for his treat. At some point you should be able to catch him when he is at the point of barking and interrupt him before the first bark.


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## Basil_the_Spoo (Sep 1, 2020)

Basil has a little window that I cut out of 25x38 paper. I just slide over a cutting surface to open or close it. Sometimes she huffs when dogs who walk too slow when she's on sentry duty so I'll slide it over. If she starts to bark I'll slide it over immediately. It let's the light in without giving the city full access to see me.

Out of sight out of mind.


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## reraven123 (Jul 21, 2017)

You don't have to leave the blind closed. Close it for a minute or two every time he starts barking and then reopen it. He'll eventually make the connection that barking gets the blind closed. Barking is very self rewarding for dogs, and he has been rewarding himself a lot for a long time, so it will take a while for him to change this behavior. The other thing you can do is sit in the window with him and calm him every time a distraction appears. If he won't calm, gently turn his muzzle away from the window until the distraction is gone. 

The most important thing is to never allow him to sit there and bark anymore, because every time he does he is being rewarded for the behavior and it will be that much harder to change it.


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## rp17 (Jun 6, 2018)

Michigan Gal said:


> Be prepared with treats in your pocket. When he barks, let him bark once, then get excited and praise him, give treat, say "thank you". You want to interrupt the barking so that he goes from too much barking to barking just once. If you can be right beside him when he gives his first bark, so much the better. Then, you can put the treat right to his noise to distract him. Once he gets the idea, you can be a couple of steps away. You say "thank you" and this is his cue to go to you for his treat. At some point you should be able to catch him when he is at the point of barking and interrupt him before the first bark.


Thank you, I'll work on rewarding quiet instead of punishing barking!



reraven123 said:


> You don't have to leave the blind closed. Close it for a minute or two every time he starts barking and then reopen it. He'll eventually make the connection that barking gets the blind closed. Barking is very self rewarding for dogs, and he has been rewarding himself a lot for a long time, so it will take a while for him to change this behavior. The other thing you can do is sit in the window with him and calm him every time a distraction appears. If he won't calm, gently turn his muzzle away from the window until the distraction is gone.
> 
> The most important thing is to never allow him to sit there and bark anymore, because every time he does he is being rewarded for the behavior and it will be that much harder to change it.


Thank you, that's a great tip about using the blinds to teach a lesson instead of us just to temporarily prevent the behavior. I admit that since our baby was born, there have been a number of times he's been allowed to bark simply because we couldn't stop him (ie: my husband's upstairs on a work call and I'm feeding the baby, so neither of us can get up and react when the barking starts). Going forward I'll make sure to not give him the opportunity to bark in the first place in those situations I know I can't stop it (close the blinds before I start feeding and reopen them once I'm available to respond to his behavior again).


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

Block the view with some rice paper or something similar - you don't have to block the whole window with blinds. There's window film that you can buy and cut to fit to block the view but not light - it's temporary and won't damage the window. https://www.lowes.com/pl/Window-fil...8FTm5YmquR12Kg76iexoC8McQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I wouldn't blame the other poodle. My daughter has a rough collie that barks all the time. We leave our minipoo with my daughter we go on vacation and we visit fairly often. Nearby dogs in our neighborhood bark - my dog never barks - she lets the other's speak up for her .


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## rp17 (Jun 6, 2018)

Skylar said:


> I wouldn't blame the other poodle. My daughter has a rough collie that barks all the time. We leave our minipoo with my daughter we go on vacation and we visit fairly often. Nearby dogs in our neighborhood bark - my dog never barks - she lets the other's speak up for her .


That makes me feel better to hear  I admit I was getting upset that it seemed like my parents' poodle's behavior "rubbed off" on mine during our extended visit. I guess he's just changed as he's gotten older!
One thing my poodle definitely DID learn from my parents' poodle during that month was to bark at the word "hello," but we trained that out of him rather quickly upon returning home by using the word "hello" regularly for a couple days. Because I know he picked that up from the other dog's reaction to the word in conversation or when answering the phone, I was quick to blame the other behaviors on him as well. It definitely wasn't from people coming over since we were all quarantining and had no visitors


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

He may very well have picked up some other bad habits from your parents naughty poodle - maybe some good ones too.


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

I agree that window film is a great management tool that also lets in the light. We use it on our lower living room windows because Peggy discovered watching the sidewalk below our home, and alerting the humans to all activity, is a super fun hobby. Ugh. The less opportunity dogs have to rehearse this behaviour, the easier it’ll be to minimize through training.

We’ve had good luck with a variation of the method @Michigan Gal describes. If someone comes onto our front porch, Peggy’s going to bark (because she’s a dog) but then she falls back to let us step between her and the window. I say thank you, look out the window, and tell her everything’s okay; she gives herself a good shake to release stress and then trots away. With this approach (vs. hollering/punishment) she’s learned the humans have everything under control. She can still alert us to intruders (good) but then she defers to us (perfect).

One thing about this method, though, is that it requires us to always be nearby. That’s going to be challenging with a baby. If I’m in the shower, for example, Peggy’s not going to stop barking at a perceived intruder. If anything, she’s going to escalate because the humans aren’t there to address the threat. This works fine with our living situation. Especially if I’m here alone, I want my dog to fill this role. If you wish to extinguish barking altogether, that’s going to be much trickier.


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