Barking Dog Kill
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When you are kept awake all night by barking
dog, “Kill it” may be your first reaction. It is against the law to kill a
dog simply because it barks too much. If the dog is your own dog, you will
have to take measures to reduce the barking so you can get a good night’s
sleep. Barking is a natural to dogs as talking is to humans – it is their
way of communicating their needs. The first step in solving the problem is
to find out why the dog is barking so much. There are usually three
reasons for dogs to bark: 1. they are scared; 2. they are bored; 3. they
are sounding an alarm. Once you inspect everything around your property
and do not find anything that you should be suspicious or alarmed about,
then you need to focus on ways of solving one of the other two reasons.
You need to become attuned to the type of barking the dog does before you
try to kill the barking episodes. A dog that is bored sometimes has a
rhythm to its barking. If the dog is alone a lot, it may be a barking dog
to kill time hoping to gain attention of some kind. Although many dog
owners scold the dog and talk to it when it starts to bark, they may
actually be reinforcing the problem because they are giving the dog some
attention. Dogs will learn quickly enough if they get attention through
barking and will continue to use it. The solution for a bored barking dog
is to kill the barking by trying to make its environment a more
interesting one. Giving the dog plenty of exercise so that it is tired and
will sleep during the night is one way of doing this. If the dog has
chewing toys handy, it will spend its time trying to tear it apart. Tired
dogs and those that are busy will not have time to bark.
Separation anxiety is another reason that dogs bark a lot. If this is the
problem with your barking dog, kill the long periods of separation between
you and your pet. You need to gradually teach the dog how to spend time
alone and you always need to praise it for its good behavior when you
return. Sometime homeowners have recordings of their voice talking to the
dog that they set to play while they are absent from the home. This
technique tends to calm the dog down and give it the feeling that the
owner is somewhere near.
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