10 Easy Steps to Keep Dogs from Barking

To keep dogs from barking you need to identify the reason for the barking. There are a number of reasons why a dog barks, but for this article I am focusing on Alarm Barking. This is barking a dog does when he is trying to alert you to something. For example, at this very moment, my dog is barking, trying to tell me there is a cat outside the house.

This is a great example of when and how to use this method to keep your dog from barking. He sees a cat and then barks. This is fine. It becomes a problem when he continues to bark and bark and bark. The cat lives here, I don't know why he has to keep barking at that cat.

Anyway, this is alarm barking, and here's 10 easy steps you can practice with your pooch to keep your dog from barking.

This is a training exercise, so you want to do this with your dog when you have some time to devote to this practice. The basic premise of this exercise is to get your dog to bark, so you can reward him for that, then get him to stop barking so you can reward him for that. You want to be able to get your dog to stop barking on command.

1. First give the command "bark" to your dog.

2. Use the trigger to get your dog to bark. (I could show mine the cat outside, or the ring the doorbell, whatever makes your dog bark)

3. Your dog will start barking.

4. Praise the dog for barking. "Good Bark" or something similar. Do not reward the dog at this point.

5. Now give the command to stop barking. "Quiet" or whatever works for you.

6. You need a seriously yummy treat (to the dog). Show him that treat now. The purpose of this is to distract him so he will stop barking.

7. Once your dog is distracted and has stopped barking praise him for being quiet. "good quiet"

8. Keep praising the dog for 5 Seconds. *this is important* Then give him the super yummy treat.

9. If your dog starts barking before the 5 seconds is over do not give the treat, instead give indication he missed out on a treat by barking. "oh, you missed out" or something to that effect. Don't be mean or yell, just let him know he missed out.

10. Repeat the entire process, Frequently and often