Barking at everything: the three kinds, and why each needs a different fix

Barking is not a fault. It is one of the main things dogs were bred for: to warn the farm, to move sheep, to tell the hunter where the fox went to ground. A dog that never barked would be a strange dog. The problem is only ever the amount, and the amount is always a symptom of something.

Almost every piece of bad barking advice comes from treating it as a single behaviour with a single cure. It is at least three, with different causes, and the fix for one is exactly wrong for another.

First, a week of notes#

Before changing anything, find out what you actually have. For a week, note each bout: when, at what, how long, and what ended it. A line on the dog's profile in mypet care will do, or the back of an envelope. If the barking happens when you are out, leave a phone or a cheap camera recording for an hour. Neighbours' reports are rarely precise, and the difference between "barks for three minutes when the post comes" and "howls for two hours after I leave" is the difference between a training exercise and a welfare problem.

The pattern usually falls into one of three.

1. Alarm barking: "something is out there"#

What it looks like. Set off by a trigger: the doorbell, footsteps on the stairs, a dog passing the window, a noise in the night. The dog faces the source, stands tall or rushes forward, and the bark is sharp and repeated. It stops when the thing goes away, which, from the dog's point of view, is because the barking worked. The postman came, was barked at, and left. Every day. For years. That is a very well rewarded behaviour.

Why shouting fails. To a dog, you shouting during an alarm is you barking too. The threat has been confirmed by the whole pack.

What works

• Take away the rehearsal. A dog with a sofa by the front window has a full-time job. Frosted film on the lower pane, a moved sofa, closed blinds at school-run time, a radio or white noise by the front door. This is not giving in. Every unrehearsed day weakens the habit.
• Thank, then redirect. Let the dog give the first bark or two; that is its job and you will not remove it. Then say something calm and consistent ("thank you"), call the dog away from the window or door, and pay generously when it comes. You are teaching: tell me, then come to me. Done every time, the dog starts barking once and running to find you.
• Re-teach the doorbell. Record your bell on a phone. Play it quietly, scatter a handful of treats on the dog's bed. Repeat over days, louder, until the bell means "run to your bed", not "run to the door". Then practise with a family member outside. It takes a fortnight of two-minute sessions.
• Give visitors a script: the dog goes to its bed or behind a gate with a chew before the door opens, and comes out to say hello once it is quiet.

If the alarm barking is on walks, at other dogs or people, it is usually fear, and that is a different piece of work: see reactive on walks.

2. Demand barking: "you, do something"#

What it looks like. Aimed at a person, with eye contact, often a play bow or a paw, often at predictable moments: while you prepare food, when you sit down, when you are on the phone, when the ball is in your hand. It has a pause in it, while the dog checks whether it worked.

Why it happens. Because it has worked. At some point barking produced the ball, the dinner, the door opening or even just "oh, be quiet", which is attention. Worse, it usually worked sometimes, and a reward that arrives unpredictably produces the most persistent behaviour there is. It is how slot machines keep people playing.

What works

• It must stop working, completely. No look, no word, no touch. Turn away, or walk out of the room and close the door for half a minute. Everybody in the house, every time. One person who gives in keeps the habit alive for all of you.
• Expect it to get worse first. When a behaviour that used to pay stops paying, animals try harder before they give up. Trainers call it an extinction burst. Louder, longer barking on day three means it is working. If you give in at that point, you have taught the dog that the new price is ten minutes of barking rather than one.
• Pay for the alternative, early. Ask for a sit, or a settle on a mat, before the barking starts, at the moments you know it comes, and reward that. A dog needs something it can do that does work.
• Meet the need. Much demand barking comes from a bright dog with nothing to do. A sniffy walk rather than a marched one, a few minutes of training, food from a puzzle feeder or scattered in the grass, a chew in the evening. A dog whose brain has been used asks for less.

3. Distress barking: "I am not all right"#

What it looks like. Happens when the dog is alone or shut away from you. High-pitched, repetitive, often mixed with whining and howling, and it goes on: not three minutes but thirty, or all morning. There may be scratching at the door, chewing at the frame, drooling, or accidents in a house-trained dog. On a recording the dog does not settle between bouts; it paces.

This is not naughtiness and it is not boredom. It is panic, and nothing in the first two sections applies. Ignoring it does not teach the dog anything, because the dog is not trying to get something; it is afraid. Punishing it, in person or through a collar, makes a frightened dog more frightened.

It needs the gradual, below-threshold approach set out in our guide to separation anxiety: absences short enough that the dog stays calm, built up over weeks, arranging cover in the meantime so the dog is not left to panic, and a conversation with your vet, because medication genuinely helps these dogs learn.

A milder relative is the dog barking in the garden for an hour: usually a mixture of alarm barking with nobody to stop it and plain under-occupation. The answer is not to leave a dog alone in a garden as its day's activity.

What not to buy#

Anti-bark collars, whether they give a shock, a spray of citronella, a vibration or a high-pitched sound, all work the same way: something unpleasant happens when the dog barks. They cannot tell an alarm from a cry of distress, they punish the dog for communicating, and the evidence on them is consistent: they raise stress, the effect wears off, and in fearful dogs they make the underlying problem worse. Electric shock collars are banned in a growing list of European countries, and every major veterinary and behaviour organisation advises against all of them. The barking is the symptom. A collar treats the symptom by frightening the patient.

Surgical "debarking" is prohibited across Europe under the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals.

When to see the vet#

• A dog that has started barking more, especially an older dog, and especially at night. Failing sight or hearing, pain, and canine cognitive dysfunction (dementia) all show up this way, and all can be helped.
• Barking with any other change: appetite, thirst, sleep, house-training.
• Distress barking, as above.

Be realistic about the dog you have#

Terriers, spitz breeds, Shelties and other herders, Beagles and most small companion breeds were selected for their voice. You can have a terrier that barks twice and comes to find you. You cannot have a silent terrier, and a plan that aims for silence will fail and sour things between you. Aim for short, and for a dog that stops when asked.

The neighbours#

If there has been a complaint, talk to them before it becomes a letter. Tell them you know, what kind of barking it is, and what you are doing about it; show them the notes. Most people are patient with a problem that is visibly being worked on, and most towns' noise rules, which are generally about persistent noise during set quiet hours, are only ever enforced against people who did nothing.

The short version#

Alarm barking: block the view, thank the dog, call it away and pay it. Demand barking: make it useless and reward the quiet alternative, and hold your nerve through the bad few days. Distress barking: that is a frightened dog, so treat the fear, not the noise. And whichever it is, a week of notes first, because you cannot fix the kind you have not identified.