What to do about excitement barking? [Archive] - Chazhound Dog Forum

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irotas
09-07-2007, 10:50 PM
Sometimes if Manni gets REALLY excited it just boils over and he starts barking in a very loud and high pitch tone. It doesn't sound like "attention barking" that I've heard from other dogs, which isn't nearly as high pitched. This barking seems more like "I'm extremely excited and I can't get rid of it any other way!"

I've seen him do it outside when he sees squirrels or birds, but also sometimes in the house as well. When he does it in the house, he's always staring directly at either me or my wife.

Originally we decided to completely ignore it, so as to not reward him at all. Unfortunately, this didn't really work, and he'd just keep barking until he worked himself into a total frenzy. We really tried this method for a while but it didn't really seem to reduce the frequency of him doing it. I'm also worried that my landlord (who lives upstairs) might hear him and get upset.

Lately we're taking a different approach, to immediately put him into "training mode" when he does it. We haven't been doing it for very long, but I'm worried that in some way it's rewarding him.

I'm curious what other people do when their dog does this.

emc
09-08-2007, 12:18 AM
Remove him from the situation that's making him bark and then give him something to distract him like a chew toy. My chihuahua does this, I tell her to be quiet but if that doesn't work I send her to her pillow and that seems to do it since she reacts only when she see something.