how to control barking
 

I want Khloe to bark sometimes because she is a great alarm, but how do I get her to calm down the barking. To me she barks excessively. When you tell her to be quiet she barks back like she is talking back to you. And I am also observing that she wants to nip your pants legs now when she gets in this barking frenzy. Help what should I do? She is 6 months and I don't want her to be a terror.:(

I hear ya! I have one that is a barker too! She just turned two and guess I have failed but have tried everything! I will be watching post to see advice if not too late for mine? Good luck!

Just teach him some basic obedience. Sit. Stay. Down. Rollover. Gets him used to listening to you & following your commands by rote. Once he's doing those tricks well & getting praise/reward treats, you can teach him some impulse control. Teach him "Leave it" & then "Wait" as you leave the room & return. Then, once he's good at controlling his impulses, teach him to bark on command with good praise/reward treats for barking his head off. Then, teach him "Quiet" with praise/reward treats. Be sure you train in that order, basic stuff first, then some impulse control & then grauate to the big one - barking impulse control.

I took my gal to Pet Smart training for help and she passed all the sit, stay, down etc but no help with the barking. Only thing that stops is to pick up a newspaper at the moment and shake it or whop her with it. She runs like she is scared. Then starts barking again. Every time my husband comes in or goes out she barks at him! He won't carry a paper with him but I can tell her I'm leaving and she has to stay and she doesn't bark. But, if it thunders she will get us up all hours barking at it!:confused: My male is not that way but I didn't raise him from a puppy. This has been a big problem ever since she was a puppy! I even called the breeder to get help and know it is probably all my fault. :thumbdown I've tried water guns and even banging on something loud and say no bark!:animal36

Training the dog in impuse control after basic obedience is a necessity. Basic training won't really train them to control impulses. Once you have taught some impulse control, then train to bark on command & then the "Quiet" training. That has worked on all of my dogs but it takes dedication & work & persistence & loads of patience since you are training the dog to go against the basic bark instinct. Keep the training to very short episodes 2 -3 times a day & remember, you love this dog so don't ever lose your temper or show any impatience if he's not learning fast enough for you. Training a dog teaches us to be better people & control ourselves when things aren't going fast enough for us. But hanging in there & working to help your dog to learn not to bark inappropriately will be worth it - and fun as you see them gaining understanding & self-control, wanting to please you.

I disagree a little bit with previous poster as hitting them with paper & such will only increase their level of excitement & teach fear response to you & things in your hand - not quieten them, in my experience.

Mine is a barker too, and we are having some problems with it. He knows sit, down, off, stay, leave it, (last two can be iffy, but he does know them)shake, turn, high five, low five and speak. We're working on quiet/no bark.

The one thing I do notice is that he is also a talker-completely different tone than barking. I try and positively reinforce the talking. He usually is barking to tell us something, so I'm okay with him talking to let us know, just not the excessive barking.

When he's barking and I can discern why, I'll ask him to do a command to get his attention, like sit. Once I have his attention, I will ask him again "Gotta go potty? Are you thirsty?" and he'll respond if I guessed right.

If he's barking because he wants to play, I tell him Quiet! and then I ask where a toy is and tell him to go get it. If he brought the toy to me already and is still barking, I make him do a command and sit quietly, then I throw the toy.

Jaeger gets dog food at 530am and about 5 pm, which is too long between, for his liking. I do usually give him "salad" around noon (dog friendly veggies and fruit only.) When he gets impatient for dinner or lunch, he'll bark. We did nip this one in the bud by purchasing a timer. If he barks for a meal, I set the timer for whenever dinner is-sometimes over an hour away and tell him "timer off, dinner" and he's quiet until the timer goes off.

I think his problem with barking is that he is SO aware of everything and wants to tell us. I'm fairly blind, so I miss a lot, and my partner is an Aspie, so he misses a lot too. I think if we caught everything, he'd bark less. To me, that means more vigilance on our part, and more distracting him on our part too.