Talk with your neighbours
You may want to ask your neighbours to help you document the barking for a few days, given that your dog may be barking when you are away or at work. Explain to your neighbours that you are aware of the issue and ask for their help and patience while you try and solve the problem.
If you are concerned about speaking with your neighbours you may wish to use the Barking dog package for the dog owner(PDF, 426KB). The cards enable your neighbours to give you feedback anonymously.
Common reasons for barking
- Separation anxiety – occurs if your dog usually barks as you are leaving home and continues throughout the day. It is much too exuberant in its greeting when you get home and can exhibit a variety of other behaviours. There are many solutions but keeping it busy with activities during the day will help. Your vet can provide you with further advice.
- Boredom – barking is often caused by boredom but your bored dog may also be destructive, dig holes or escape. To help stop this behaviour, fill your dog’s day with fun activities and look for the many ‘do-it-yourself’ dog toys and timer-activated feeding devices that are available. Check your library, pet books and the internet for ideas.
- Fearful dogs – fearful dogs are often over-reactive to the normal activities of everyday life and will bark excessively to try to ‘scare things off’. These behaviours are often worse when you are not home to offer comfort and guidance. Socialising your dog with other dogs will often help but professional guidance with a qualified behaviourist or veterinarian may be needed.
- Territorial – a territorial barker is usually bold and confident. Solid fences will often help but we recommend the help of a trained professional to reduce this behaviour.
Ways to find out why your dog is barking
If you are unsure why your dog is barking, take the time to determine the following:
- Time of day – does your dog bark at certain times of the day? What is happening in your neighbourhood at that time? Is the postman delivering mail? Is your rubbish being collected? Are children coming home from school and walking past your property? Are straying cats or possums in your yard at night?
- What are you doing? – are you leaving to go to work when your dog starts barking? Are you away for extended periods of time, resulting in your dog’s boredom? Are you rewarding the unwanted behaviour by reacting to it?
- What is your dog doing? – is your dog stressed, excited, bored or lonely? Is your dog trying to get to you – its ‘pack’?
- What happens after my dog barks? Does there appear to be any form of stress release for the dog? Is the behaviour normal for my dog?
- Is my dog’s behaviour learned or conditioned?
- How long has my dog been barking?
- How did the behaviour problem start? What were the circumstances?
- Look at the length of time this behaviour has been going on; has it been gradual or is it occasional or progressive?
Sometimes it is difficult to determine the cause of barking. Your dog may be unpredictable. The barking may just be a bad habit, it may be attention seeking or in response to something you can’t see.
Once you have assessed yourself, your problem, and your dog, use the information on this page to determine what you can do, or who you can ask for help to prevent your dog barking and becoming a neighbourhood nuisance. An alternative is to discuss your dog’s behaviour with your local vet or veterinary behaviourist, particularly if you feel your dog is anxious.
Ideas to help manage barking
- Avoid conditioning – do not reward your dog for bad behaviour.
- Companionship – before leaving home, turn on the television or radio, or give your dog an old coat or item of clothing that belongs to you.
- Never call your dog after it has stopped barking and then punish it.
- Increase physical exercise.
- Regularly walk your dog and change the route you walk.
- Take your dog for a drive.
- Spend fun time with your dog.
- Avoid routine e.g. carry your keys with you at different times, not just the times you are leaving.
- Access to the house – if you can let the dog inside the house, provide it with a single room that may smell like you (for comfort) in order to relax the dog (the ‘denning’ principle).
- Obedience training – a dog can be trained to be alone, and bark only on command.
- Avoid stimulus – distract your dog with another form of reward at the time it normally barks at a neighbourhood disturbance (eg the postman).
- Fence design – a fence correctly designed to restrict your dog’s vision of outside stimuli if your dog can see outside.
- Anti-barking devices, used in conjunction with obedience training, can reduce barking.
- Discipline – show your dog that you are the head of the house. Dogs are pack animals and need to be shown where they stand in relation to the family unit.
- Avoid boredom by using interactive toys that hide food, such as a 'Kong' (a rubber toy) or ones that are designed to require manipulation and work to obtain the food reward. Leave toys, rope chews, rawhides and even bones for a dog to play with and use up time while alone. Leaving an article of clothing with the scent of the missed loved one on it can also work well, especially for puppies.