Dogs were born to bark, never mind breeding practices, dogs were pretty much born to bark, same way we can’t do without talking, they can’t do without barking. Barking is how dogs vocalize their feelings and needs, so before you can stop you’re golden retriever from barking, you need to understand why he barks and be able to stop golden retriever barking.
The Causes of Dog Barking
There are many reasons for dogs to bark, here is the most common reasons:
- Anger barking;
- Excitement barking;
- Fear barking;
- Hunger barking;
- Barking for feeling of too cold or warm;
- Attention seeking barking;
- Alarm barking;
- Greeting barking;
- Frustration barking;
- Compulsive barking;
- Injury or Illness barking.
As you can see there are plenty of reasons that can trigger your dog to start barking, most of these reasons can be easily spotted and alleviated, for example if your dog is barking because his hungry, feeding him should stop him from barking again.
Barking is a means of communication for dogs, they don’t understand what our language means, but they associate it’s sounds with what we seem to want, and after some time they will recognize a number of words and act on them. We can do the same about barking, there a number of ways of barking like mentioned before, each one is distinct, some more easily distinguished than others, with attention and observation you can with time associate a certain barking type with a given reason, all it takes is time, patience and some attention.
How to Stop Barking Dogs
Before going on how to stop golden retriever barking, you should first realize something, there is no way to completely stop any dog from barking, no matter what you do.
Now with that clearly defined, if you want to stop your dog from barking, start by finding the trigger behind it and take notice of when he barks, maybe there is some recurrence related to the trigger, for example, your dog may always bark whenever he goes to a given place or when someone in particular comes to your home.
If you realize your dog is barking because his alarmed with something or trying to protect it’s territory, which is very common when people or other animals are coming near or are at your home. In that case, simply ordering your dog to stop barking might do the trick most times, but this isn’t such a good idea, negative reinforcing a dog who is barking as means to assert and protect territory might stop the dog from barking, but when it does, it becomes more prone to biting or other forms of aggressiveness as means to protect his territory.
You might wonder why this happens, well your dog understands you don’t want him to bark, however he still feels responsible to ensure the protection of the household, simply putting it, you stopped the barking but the territorial issues are still present.
Instead of suppressing the barking your dog exhibits, it is preferable to reduce the number of occasions that may lead your dog to bark again, or instead, you can create a situation in which your dog will not feel the need to defend itself or it’s territory by taking yourself that role. Furthermore, you can reduce the dog’s ability to see the people or animals it sees as a threat, draw your blinds so he cannot the garbage or the mail delivery man for example, or have an opaque fence so he cannot see outside the yard.
Stop Anxious Barking Dogs
Whenever you are away from home for a period of time, does your dog bark until you return? Or maybe he’s got a little smarter and barks whenever your arrival is due to happen, and stops when you arrive home and finally give him the attention he desired, if this is the case them your dog has some anxiety issues.
This happens because someday you rewarded him for this behavior, when you return home he’s excited and anxious, you immediately give him attention, this is perceived as a reward by the dog of course, rather than rewarding him this way, you should ignore your dog for about 15 minutes so they stop associating barking as means to get attention with your return home.
To stop golden retriever barking, it is best to teach him when to bark and when to be quiet, by creating commands that allows you to control the behavior, your dog will learn to bark whenever necessary. This way you can still have him barking to alert whenever there is an intruder, while keeping him from barking at unnecessary situations.
Dog barking doesn’t have to be that awkward problem that brings your neighbors knocking on your door, learn to control it early on and you won’t to have worry about it that much.