The Nifty Trick That Stopped My Dogs Alert Barking
You know why I didn’t name this article “how to stop your dog from barking — guaranteed!”? Because that’s a pretty hefty promise, and I’m not here to trick you into believing there’s only one method that will stop your dog from barking.
I have no problem telling you exactly how I manage my dog’s resource guarding around food because it’s a pretty specific situation. But when it comes to barking? There isn’t one correct method that will stop your dog from barking. There’s too many variables involved. Dogs bark for a variety of reasons, and there’s a ton of different methods that may or may not work for your dog.
So today I’m not promising you the world — but I can offer you one simple method that helps with alert barking. It’s a method I call “Ok, thank you ma’am.”
So if your dog barks at stuff while looking out the window, or every time your neighbor pulls into their driveway, go ahead and give this method a shot. It worked for my “holy crap do you see that bird – he’s walking all over our mailbox!” dog, so it might just work for yours.
What Is Alert Barking?
Alert barking is your dogs way of letting you know they’ve seen or heard something out of the ordinary. If your dog stares out the window & barks at everything that moves, or if he barks every time your neighbor starts his motorcycle that’s alert baking. Some people call it nuisance barking, aka when your dog barks at all the things all day long.
Alert barking is normal behavior for dogs — it’s a way for them to let you (and everyone else in the home) know that something’s happening. While it’s a completely normal behavior for dogs, it’s probably not your favorite activity of theirs. But luckily you can cut down on a lot of your dogs excessive barking by being around to manage it.
Tip: If your dog barks a lot when you’re at home give them a few mentally stimulating things to do throughout the day. When dogs don’t have anything to do and get bored they’ll find ways to entertain themselves, and barking out the window is a popular choice. Finding ways to keep your dog busy indoors can help cut down on a lot of excessive barking.
The “OK, Thank You Ma’am” Method to Stop Alert Barking
My dog barks at every thing that enters the yard. Deer, turkey, cats, squirrels, leaves, you name it. In other words she barks at everything. It’s a bit annoying to say the least, so I decided to try to get to the bottom of it.
Rather than yelling “shut up!!!!” across two rooms or trying to ignore it (neither method works at all) I decided to check it out for myself. What the hell was she barking at all this time? What was it that was bothering her so much?
Sometimes she was barking at something unusual like 5 deer frolicking in the backyard. Sometimes it was a cat or squirrel, but most times I had no clue what she was alerting to. The yard looked clear to me.
But that act alone stopped her barking. After I got up off my lazy butt to investigate it for myself my dog looked to me to find out what to do next.
So I simply started patting her head & telling her “OK, thank you ma’am” and walked away. And you know what happened? She quieted right back down.
Ignoring or yelling at barking makes things worse. For alert barking the first step is acknowledging what they’re barking at, and then giving them a settle down cue.
Why Acknowledging Alert Barking Is So Important
So why do you have to acknowledge your dogs barking? Can’t you just ignore it and wait for them to stop on their own? Well you can, but it’s not very effective. And chances are if your dog is trying to alert you to something, they’re gonna keep barking until you finally listen and see what all the fuss is about.
Acknowledging your dogs alert barking is the first step in figuring out how to manage it.
It’s a simple way to let your dog know “OK, I checked it out too and it’s all clear.” It’s acknowledging their instinct to alert to something unusual rather than just ignoring it. If your dog believes they are alerting you to something important do you know what they do when you ignore it? They get louder.
I mean I know I get louder and grow more frustrated when I’m trying to say something important and everyone’s just ignoring me. It’s nice to have someone listen and say “OK, thank you ma’am” every once in a while.
When my dog kept barking & barking as I just sat and pretended not to hear her I wonder if she was thinking “doesn’t this lady care that there’s a turtle ON OUR PATIO COMING RIGHT FOR US!?!” And since I just kept ignoring it she kept going — until I simply acknowledged it by looking at it myself and saying “OK, thank you ma’am.”
It lets your dog know that “Yes, I see that turtle, but we don’t need to worry about it. It’s all good.” Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Why Yelling Makes Things Worse
When it comes to trying to stop your dog from barking I know that yelling at them and punishing them is our first instinct. It’ll show them that we’re frustrated and want them to settle down, right? Well, not exactly. When you yell at your dog you’re riling them up even more, and they have a tendency to get even louder.
Imagine you see something concerning and you yell to your partner or friend to come take a look, and in return they start screaming. It would raise your stress levels, right? Now everyone’s in panic mode. That’s how it works when you yell at your dog for alert barking. They’re trying to let you know they see something they find concerning, and in return you start yelling back. It’s likely to put your dog on even higher alert.
So when it comes to managing your dog’s barking it’s important to keep your tone in mind. If you want your dog to settle down and be quiet your voice needs to reflect that. When you keep calm and give your dog a command they’re much more likely to settle down and listen to you.
via dumpaday
This Method Won’t Cure All Barking
Remember that dogs bark for all sorts of reasons, and figuring out why is an important step to stopping it. This method words well for alert barking because our dogs are trying to let us know what’s going on, and acknowledging their concern let’s them know they’ve done “their job.”
If you ignore it, or yell at them to stop, they’re likely going to keep barking because it’s in their nature to let you know when something unusual is going on. Giving them a quick “thank you, I see it” lets them know that everything is OK, there are no security breaches that need addressing at this time.
But if your dog alert barks when you’re not home? Well that’s a bit more difficult. Many dogs bark out the window at all hours of the day whether their owner is home or not, and if it’s due to separation anxiety that’s a completely different issue altogether.
Sometimes blocking your dogs access to the trigger (such as covering up windows when you’re away) is the only option you have when you’re not around to manage it — unless you want multiple complaints by neighbors.
Barking is a normal part of dog behavior, so the goal is not to create a barkless dog, rather to be able to manage barking so that it does not become excessive and disturbing to us or our neighbors. – How to Curb Your Dog’s Barking
Do You Have Any Preferred Methods to Stop Barking?
Does your dog bark out the window at everything that moves? What methods get them to settle down? Do you acknowledge their barking or ignore it?
Please share with your friends.
Love Love LOVE this post! All of our dogs do alert barking at varying degrees. Zoey currently holds the world championship in this event and I don’t anticipate her giving up her title any time soon.
How I’ve learned to slow down her alert barking is three fold.
1) Zoey needs a lot of exercise and exposure. We go outside daily with the dogs and sometimes I’ll go out with Zoey alone and let her walk around and investigate. This is great in the morning and evening, because I know she won’t chase deer or coyotes when it’s just the two of us. All of this sensory input satisfies her alert barking and calms her down. The exercise wears her out so that the barking is at a minimum.
2) Say “Thank You.” Zoey wants to be acknowledged so I thank her for telling me that a deer is near my garden, a leaf floated by the window, the UPS delivery was just made, and she heard a sound a second ago. I say “thank you, sweetie, what a good girl.” This settles her down.
3) Essential Oils!!! When she’s in rare form, competing for that championship medal, I’ll rub a teeny amount of Lavender or Stress Away essential oil (a small amount, because she’s sensitive to scents) and massage it into her scruff and around her neck while reminding her that she’s okay and she’s a good girl for letting me know. She calms right down.
This won’t work for all dogs, but it’s doing great with Zoey.
#2 fits Laika perfectly. Every single thing that moves must be acknowledged.
And there’s definitely a correlation between Laika’s “barkiness” and how much exercise she’s gotten that day. Great point.
I haven’t tried Lavender, but I’ve heard plenty of good things about it. Might pick some up next time I’m out. Thanks for the tips.
My teddy barks like that and I also found that going to the patio door and telling him hes a good boy ,and it’s ok teddy hes calm ,diffrent dogs diffrent methods
Tx
This is the method I use with my dogs. I think they sincerely think they are serving one of their traditional doggie jobs by guarding the estate. The least we can do is acknowledge their work.
After I started seeing how happy Laika was after acknowledging what she was barking at I realized that as well. Once you understand why they’re doing it it’s a lot easier to appreciate.
I do similar to what you do. The thing is, there are certain things i WANT them to bark at, so like you, I get up and go check it out. if it’s the big, bad garbage truck stealing stuff from our bins, I usually pet their head and tell them ‘it’s okay’. I don’t want to get them totally out of alerting, because I want them to bark if there’s someone at my door/in my house in the middle of the night, or stealing something from my car. BUT if they’re stealing my car, well they can have it. 😉
Cookie doesn’t bark a lot and when she does she has a reason. Well, not always a good one but a reason nonetheless. Being a reactive dog, sometimes she gets upset about certain things. For that I use the “look at that” game to convince her that it’s all good. When she alert barks, and particularly since she doesn’t do it often, I’ve always felt it was only polite to acknowledge there is something worrisome. I’d go and join her at the door or window, look and listen. Then I’ll go outside “to check” and report back with my findings. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. I tell you that, for example, after one night she just kept barking and,couldn’t be stopped, we found moose prints near the house even though I didn’t see or hear anything when I went to check.
On the other hand, she’s perfectly capable,of,noticing,the second hand on a clock which was around for a year and start barking at that. Took me a while to figure out what was the matter. LOL Then I did the “look at that” and all was fine.
One morning she started barking at 4 in the morning. As I always do, I politely looked out the window. What I didn’t expect to see was a herd of horses heading to town. We called the neighbor whether she was missing any. Good thing Cookie alerted us otherwise they’d be scattered God knows where but the time anybody would notice they were gone.
I try not to discourage all of Laika’s barking for that reason – sometimes there is something very important going on outside. I’m glad Cookie alerted to the herd of horses, I imagine that was quite a sight.
It was quite a sight. Not wha I expected when I looked out the window to show Cookie I was taking her seriously LOL
Leroy is an alert barker for sure but I also think he barks sometimes just to hear himself. I’m going to give this a try tonight when we sit out on the back patio!
Thank you for writing this amazing post! One of my dogs is an avid alert barker and usually when it happens I just redirect her from the window. But I’ve never thought about acknowledging her barks before! This post has really opened my eyes (and that meme is hysterical, haha!). I’ll try out this method – fingers crossed! 🙂
Great post!
I’ve used a treat machine before to counter condition my dogs to people and dogs passing by our windows. Someone passes by and I hit the button. It didn’t take them very long to figure out that people and dogs walking by = awesome and there was no reason to bark. I also totally agree with you that acknowledging that they saw something is really helpful and makes them feel better.
Where do you get a treat machine and what kind of treat do you put in it? Our little Schipperke barks at my adult children or anyone that comes down the stairs or in the door. Even though she is small she is confident and has sharp teeth which scares people! I’ve heard the “make it rain treats” but I’m not always right there to manually shower treats. 🙂
Sophie is the queen of sounding the alert. She starts, the other two join in and then she stops. Interestingly enough, my family says that she really only barks when I’m home. I have noticed that sometimes saying “thanks” to my dogs does seem to settle them down. I am going to try to do that more often and see if it works consistently!
For a while, we had a neighbor that my dog really didn’t like. Even after he moved out, she would bark at the new neighbors when they walked by our door too. So I set up our Manners Minder so it would drop treats into Koira’s crate, and put the remote on my front door. I asked the neighbors to push the button every time they walked by. Luckily, the neighbors thought the entire thing was really cool. The few times I took the remote down at first, they would actually knock on my door and say that the remote was missing. And after a few weeks of doing this, Koira was much, much better about the barking. She would still bark when they go by, but not as loudly/nervously.
How cute…you named your dog koira which means dog in finnish.
My neighbours dog barks constantly, at everything, even the wind! They don’t come out to hush him up at all or bring him in:( I tried unsuccessfully to tell him to stop, to no avail. He is a nice dog, I’ve even taught him tricks over the fence. One day, I was so annoyed at his barking I thought I’d just tell him to stop in a different voice. In a deep voice I said “Sid, NO!” He looked at me, stopped barking and walked off. I thought that was cool, and every time he barks I say “Sid, NO!” (it’s important to use the dog’s name, otherwise they suppose you’re not talking to them) and he stops, unless he’s on the other side of the yard barking at that neighbour. It’s worth a try, it’s working for me:)
This is the best method which most dog owners use with the dogs, I think they have sincerely think they are serving as the guarding the estate. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the tip – I’ll be sure to try it and share it. Our youngest dog has incredible timing – he will wait until we go upstairs to start barking non-stop…hopefully this tip will save us additional trips up and down the stairs.
I say lets see and we take a look, then I say it’s ok and we go back to our places. However if there are Ravens ! The door is open so the dogs can go get em! The Ravens tease by flying back and forth over the yard and it’s great fun.
I can’t help but laugh at that picture in my mind. We haven’t had any of those encounters with ravens here but from what I know of them they’re pretty smart and I think it’s pretty funny that they seem to enjoy teasing.
Hey they are just doing their job. They are so quick to get the ok all clear thank you! Doing this for years works great!
Is the dog pictured an Entlebucher Mountain Dog? Just wondering.
Thank you, and it’s such a good reminder that although it may annoy us they are just doing their job. (and good eye; it is indeed a Entlebucher Mountain Dog)
We have a major problem with my Chihuahua barking, not only does she bark at anyone at the door or the neighbors upstairs …..the big problem is she watches television with me! Anytime an animal comes on the TV, she barks at it, whether it is a cat, dog, horse, or even a bird! When she barks as an alert for the neighbor or the door I do tell her “Okay, thank you” and that works, but when she barks at the TV,it’s inappropriate. Sometimes it’s so bad that I just give up and turn the television off. What do I do!? I have tried everything I can think of.
Since she has such a strong reaction to the TV I’d work on some desensitization. If she is indeed being reactive towards them it’s going to take awhile to change her association from “I need to bark at anything that moves on TV” to “I can remain calm while watching TV.” Reactivity is a fear based response, and since it’s an emotional behavior it can take longer to get under control compared to other issues. It’s hard when it comes to TV and the unpredictability of what’s going to come on next, but I’d try to find a video that elicits a mild response from her and work my way up from there. Does she enjoy treats? If so I’d play a video that gets only a small response from her and try to calm her down with the treats – if the treats are enough to distract her and stop her from barking I’d go ahead and keep practicing that until she seems completely comfortable in that situation. Starting slowly with a video that only gets a mild reaction from her will help tremendously, if you pick on that gets her really riled up it will probably be nearly impossible to calm her down. In desensitization and counter conditioning that’s called being above thresh-hold, and it hinders progress. (don’t feel bad if it happens though, all of us with reactive dogs face setbacks from time to time). Desensitization isn’t the easiest method to get right all the time, but you can change the way she reacts to stressors with it.
Here’s some articles (and videos) that I think will help:
https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/13_12/features/Dog-Barking-at-TV_20147-1.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpzvqN9JNUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFZ003dY8cU
https://clickertraining.com/node/2327
I wish you the best of luck.
Yes! You are absolutely correct! My chihuahua/rat terrier mix has been barking for 14 years at every little noise he hears outside. Nothing worked….I mean NOTHING all these years. The louder I yelled, the louder, and longer he barked. Until a few months ago I realized I should really thank him for doing his guard dog duty. As soon as I started to say, “Thank you, Paco, for letting me know. Good boy”…. he stopped. Immediately! Making eye contact with him while saying that really helped, too. Now he doesn’t even bark at most things anymore. I think he just wanted me to know that he could protect me… if I needed it. ????
Great advice! Worked immediately with my new 1yr. old Beagle Mix. She used to bark and chase anyone and everything down the fence line. Now I’ll go out on porch to investigate, acknowledge the source of the barking, tell her “It’s OK… Good girl”. She’ll stop barking and either come inside or lay down on porch. Amazing!????
Just ran across this while I was anxiously trying to find out exactly why my dog was barking at the door for no reason when my husband and I were right there in the living room next to him.
After taking your advice and simply going to the door and acknowledging him, he stopped immediately!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I use to yell at my dog every time he would bark but started to notice he stopped barking even at times when he should (such as a stranger in the yard). After watching him I was very careful to only tell him to not bark when it was needed. He’s a wonderful chihuahua and after paying attention to him for a short time I realized he had different barks and looks if something was important. Dogs are so much smarter than most give them credit for, please give your dog lots of love, they will feel it and return it twice over!
My Aussie girl just moved into an apartment a lot of grouchy old sick people live here
I wanted a tiny house with a yard but I had no choice
She never barks at night
from 8pm to 8am no barking
she is an alert barker
I am trying to catch her when she barks
she looks outside the window
a few of the men have complained
this is a dog friendly apartment but I suppose no barking allowed
that makes no sense to me
Australian Shepherds may be more vocal than other breeds
I am getting to be a nervous wreck
other than punish her, which I won’t do, she also has asthma
like I do.
She is a watch dog…we want to move to a tiny house with yard
away from nasty dog haters
acknowledging their good work IS worthy of the effort, their heart is to hel keep you safe or let you know something’s different, daddy or mama….just fyi. my ‘girls’ are old, but it’s good for them to hear mama recognize their effort…god bless em.
Like many of you my Westie barks at any and everything. Now we know why his fathers name is Sir Barks a lot. It’s not a mean bark but it can get fairly high pitched which is very annoying. I have tried all of the tips in this page. I tried the collar that sprays a scent to no avail. I am at my wits end. My husband doesn’t want to cover the windows. I’m afraid the neighbors are going to get very annoyed with the barking. It seems like sometimes he barks to see if he gets a response from the neighboring dogs.
I tried yelling, grabbing her collar, closing the blinds, but my two and a half year old German shepherd, Meghan, still alerted to EVERYTHING. Read this amazing article and decided to try. I remained calm, looked at what she was looking at, and told her “I see it, Meggi, it’s OK, good girl, thank you”. Then I walked away, and she followed. Most effective strategy I have ever tried. I am following the same procedure EVERY time, no yelling, no collar jerking, and remaining calm. Following up with a butt or head scratch cuz dogs love that and it is positive reinforcement. Meggi and I are both happier and calmer, in fact she will often now just look out the window and doesn’t alert bark at everything. Thank you for a training tool that emphasizes positve reinforcement and interaction.
Very good suggestion thanks to you sir..
I like the page everyone is on here so I am hoping for some input and ideas: we have four dogs, two large and two small. No behavior issues except for only one: one of the large dogs lunges and barks at other dogs when inside a car – and only inside a car! If we walk down the street, on or off leash, she does not even care to look at another dog, never mind to bark or lunge in their direction. She does alert bark at home but only until we look to see what is up ourselves. We have been trying to figure out why would she do that when in the car: it looks so vicious, especially with her being a large dog and we want to get to the bottom of this vs just reprimanding this behavior as she is perfect all around otherwise. Thoughts? Ideas?
My dog does this. I didn’t realize I naturally tell him, Okay, Sam, thank you. Then he doesn’t necessarily stop barking, but muffles it to make it quieter.
I have 6 month old Australian Shepard. She is wining through the whole time I walk with her almost like talking with different voice variations… Some times it is louder than other times. When she sees person approaches on a distance with or without another dog she starts wining more and as we get closer to that person (especially if that person is with a dog) the wining turns into the bark. It is always the same pattern and I can not stop her from barking until the person and the dog disappear from her site. It always happen on the walks. If I take her to the pets tore with me she wines and barks there as well… Rrrr! It is so emberassing!!! !She does not bark in the car and at home. Any suggestions ? Thank you for your reply.
Great advice, couldn’t make my pup to stop barking for 2 years 🙂
We have tried telling her it’s OK, I see no need to bark. But she gets crazy and she’s not hearing us. So no amount of calm words or treats stop her when she goes off on one.
Same for me 🙁
This is really great information. You’re absolutely right. I’ve found that if I acknowledge my dog, Henry, who generally only barks just to let me know that someone has arrived outside, then he’ll stop. However, about a year ago, he barked very oddly and lowly at slightly after midnight. I was trying to sleep and ignored him thinking it was coyotes. My bad. Because about 5 minutes later, someone broke into my house. He’s a great alert dog without being overly obnoxious. However, I do pay even more attention to his alert barks now. Thanks for this article. It was reaffirming.
I found this article so very helpful ,I had to come back and look for it .we gave the thank u girl good job approach and immediately soon as I tended to what she ws barking at she was done barking, when I ignore her I found she got louder n louder until the situation passed .she now has what we call her whisper bark it’s not a loud bark just a lil quiet woof 😉 also this worked for a blue nosed amstaf pitbull 1.5 yrs old female
ThNk you
We live in a basement apartment, and our two German shepherds alert bark incessantly, literally any time someone moves around upstairs. I’m personally at the end of my wits and starting to look at rehoming options, though my spouse doesn’t seem bothered by the barking at all.
We’ve tried rewarding when they quiet down (worked very slightly but not nearly enough). We’ve tried following them and checking out what they’re barking at (which encouraged them to bark more). We’ve tried the “thank you, ma’am” method, and they just keep barking even after being acknowledged. We’ve tried everything else I’ve seen online, outside of the ultrasonic collars that I’m not convinced on whether they’re humane.
I’ve never had such terrible luck with training dogs to stop barking, and it’s getting so loud/bad that it’s literally hurting my ears and sometimes leaving me with tinnitus.
Any advise for someone who is at the end of their rope, or in this case, the end of their leash?
I should also say, the dogs do receive plenty of mental stimulation, and usually play with one another a little more on days where my spouse and I are a little more on the busy side. They get plenty of attention, loves, and playtime, and outside of the barking they’re fantastic dogs.
I don’t jump to the potential rehoming conclusion out of thin air, I think having two shepherds allows them to build off of one another’s energy, and leads to much worse barking than when we just had one of them. We’ve been trying to train the barking out of them for nearly 7-8 months.
Our pup is a year old, and the older dog was rehomed to us and is 6 years old. He’s the one with the powerful bark that literally hurts my ears. We’ve solved several of the other reasons why he was rehomed to us in the first place, and we saved his life getting him on treatments for lupus and some nasty anal gland issues. So it hurts to think about rehoming him after all we’ve been through, but after doing all I can to try to alleviate the barking for so long, nothing has worked, and I’m the one getting physically hurt at least 10 times a day, with potential serious damage to my hearing if this continues.
I stumbled upon this concept one day when I caught myself about to tell, “Shut up!” And instead, said out loud, “No, you’re just doing your job! You’re just letting me know someone’s here or something is up which is one of your major purposes as my dog, my protector, etc is, right?!” It was my “Aha! Moment.” Alert Barking (I love that term!!) Is really just our dogs doing what they were meant to do back when they were “working dogs” and not just our pets. How can we scold them for simply fufilling their god-given purpose for this earth?? So from then on, I began saying, “Ok guys. Thank you! It’s all good now. ” or some form of that. And usually, it works like a charm!