Does your dog have a behavior your not exactly pleased with? Here is the first step to changing it!

Does your dog have a behavior that really annoys you? I know our dogs have had some. We are currently working on a behavior with Barry that we need to change ASAP. It has been going on for a while and we have always been working on it, just not consistently enough to make it change. His unwanted behavior is he barks to get attention because he is bored. Does he want out? Does he need water? We make sure all his needs are met but at the end of the day it is always just boredom and needing attention. Usually, we are working or doing something important so we either oblige and get up to give him something to do, usually the wrong thing to do in this case, or we ignore him, the best course of action. We want him to figure out how to entertain himself on his own by chewing on a toy we gave him prior or use the puzzle feeder we have provided.

If you find yourself telling your dog “no, ” ask yourself what you want them to do instead. Maybe they jump on the forbidden couch. What do you want them to do instead of jumping on the couch? Obviously, your first thought is," just don’t jump on the couch," but that doesn’t fix the problem. In our case, we want Barry to realize he has everything he needs to keep entertained until we can offer some attention. By supplying him with the appropriate toys and ignoring the barking his behavior will stop. His barking will not get the attention and therefore will not work for the attention he desires.

In the end, it comes down to when he is doing this behavior, he probably hasn’t exercised in a while. He has to get a serious bout of fetch at least every two days or so. He is still young so the best way for us to have a quiet house is to run him for at least 30 min or so. Then we can work on his behaviors we want to change with much better success. We want him to find something to self entertain, without us feeding his unwanted behavior. If we ignore him, he has to figure out something to do and he has the toys available to him to keep him entertained. He always figures it out, we just have to be more consistent in our behavior. What we want him to do instead isn’t just to not bark for attention, but to self entertain.

Please contact us if you have any questions on this training tip. Currently we are offering online training sessions to keep with the social distancing restrictions we are in. For more information please visit www.newmansdogtraining.com/online-training.