Demand Behavior

Barking is a natural, normal canine behavior. If you have a dog, you need to understand and accept that sometimes dogs bark! Dogs bark for a variety of reasons. How you work to manage and modify your dog's barking will depend, at least in part, on what motivates him to bark.Step one of any good dog barking modification program is minimizing your dog's need and opportunity to bark. Exercise, an important element of many good behavior modification programs, is useful here as well. A tired dog has less energy, hence less need to bark, and a well-exercised dog tends to be emotionally healthier as well.

A dog's demand behavior is her effort to communicate her wants and needs to you. Her demand behaviors increase in intensity because she is frustrated when she doesn't get what she wants. Imagine how frustrating it would be to keep asking for something and have someone deliberately ignore your requests. No wonder she gets frustrated!

apprehensive

Dogs bark to communicate. If we start with that simple understanding, the idea of dealing with a “problem barker” becomes a whole lot easier. It changes our focus from doing anything we can to make the dog “shut up,” to figuring out what the dog is trying to say – so we can address his concerns, and finding more constructive and quieter ways for communication to occur. We’ve asked two canine behavior experts to step in and help us solve the barking problem.