Quick Tip Of The Day: Training a Dog to Bark Less

Humans have difficulties understanding what’s going on in another human’s head, especially if he is of the opposite sex. We have even greater difficulty understanding another what goes on in the head of other species.

For example, when we hear our kid crying our first instinct is to go there and tell him that everything is alright, hug him and so on. he stops crying because we made him feel better and assured. That may work well with children, but by doing this with your dog when he’s barking or crying for attention you’re actually teaching him that barking will get him what he wants and that’s not reassurance, it’s the plainly getting you to turn your head at his direction or come over.

The best (and maybe the hardest for those of us with neighbors) thing to do is to ignore your dog’s barking and come over and praise him when he’s quiet.