Dogs bark for a number of reasons. Believe it or not, their purpose is not just to wake you up when you are sleeping. Dogs bark to communicate with you.
Have you ever wondered why dogs seemed to be pre-inclined to bark at the mail man or the neighbors dog? I did. My dogs don’t like mail delivery, visitors who look in the windows first, the neighbor’s dog who likes to do her business next to “their” fence, or the guy across the street who makes a hobby of sitting on his porch just watching everything the neighbors do and working on his car. One of my dogs also doesn’t care for bicycles, but we are working on that one.
Here are the common reasons for a barking dog:
- Experiencing pain.
- Frustration
- Protecting his territory
- Protecting “his human”
- Defending himself
- Excitement
- Greeting You
- Everyone else is doing it
- Separation Anxiety
- Fear/Distress
- Attention Seeking
- Care Seeking
We’ll go through each of these individual problems in upcoming posts. If any one of these are problems for you right now, comment and I’ll put a rush on that particular problem sooner.
Related Articles
- What Are Dogs Trying to Say When They Bark? (psychologytoday.com)
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Thora whines when anxious too. Giving her an ice cube is one of her favorite cheap treats that calms her down.
An ice cube? How interesting. I wouldn’t have thought of that.
We don’t have an issue with barking, but Gus does cry/whine when he is anxious. It normally happens when he knows we’re ready to go to the park. We’ve tried all sorts of ways to calm him, but nothing has worked
Have you tried a filled Kong yet? If he doesn’t respond to that then he is very worked up. Unless he is allergic to peanuts, try filling it with peanut butter and giving it to him when you expect him to start wining. If he’s allergic to peanut butter, Kong has some of their own fillers. You can check the ingredients and see what you think about those. Let me know if this “puppy pacifier” works for you, if not we’ll come up with a training plan to work him out of it.