[alaskayorkie]

Originally Posted by Melisa1211

My pup is about 4 months old and she is guilty of barking. Whenever I am not in the room with her she starts scratching the door/gate like crazy and barking very loudly. Also, when I am on my bed and she is on the floor she starts barking for me to pick her up. After I give in and attempt to get her on the bed she runs away from me! After I give up on chasing her in circles and I sit up on my bed she starts jumping up and barking again to come back up. I don't know what to do in this situation. I literally spent a good 15 minutes trying to chase her around to get her on the bed and to stop the barking. She also nips, growls a lot. Is this a normal puppy phase and will she grow out of it? I don't want her to become spoiled as an adult and think this is acceptable.

Sounds like she just has a lot of puppy energy and wants to play. I remember those days well -- mine didn't mellow out until they were a year or so.

Stopping the barking won't stop the excess energy. All I know to suggest is to increase its level of exercise. A tired dog is a good dog. Maybe take longer walks. Another thing that worked for me was to develop a routine for play/exercise time. Like a walk at a certain time in the morning and another at night. Play time an hour after dinner. If the dog knows exercise time is coming, it's more likely to chill at other times.

As for running away from you, your dog is teaching YOU a game. It found its own way to burn off the energy. When that happens to me, I take back control of the game by deciding what we play. Instead of catch me if you can, I pull out a squeaky toy and play tug of war. At least then I can catch them.

The goal is to give your dog fewer reasons to bark to get entertainment.