Puggles & Pitties

Dogs bark for a number of reasons, but excessive barking  can also be a signal that your dog is under a great deal of stress.

Barking is Good!

Typically excitement barking is a good thing – it means your dog is excited, happy, looking forward to something. Imagine if you were over the moon happy about something and weren’t allowed to smile, tell a friend about what’s going on, clap your hands quietly, do a little dance in your cube at work? Barking is part of a dog’s normal expressions of happiness, just like jumping, spinning, running around, wagging the tail so hard the whole body wiggles. These are all good things, and necessary in order to burn off the adrenaline that is in the dog’s body.

There are five situations where excitement barking is common:

1. When you come home;
2. When visitors arrive;
3. In the car;
4. When they see other dogs;
5. As a result of chronic stress.

In the first four instances, there are ways of working with your dog to reduce the severity and incidence of the barking while still allowing him the opportunity to express himself.

Barking from Chronic Stress

Barking resulting from chronic stress however requires that the dog’s stress level be brought down before you can begin to work with the immediate trigger of the behavior.

Owners can cause chronic stress in their dogs and not even realize it. Seemingly pleasurable activities, such as playing fetch, bicycling or jogging together, or having playdates with other dogs can all create stress when done in excess.

How do these normal doggie activities create chronic stress?  Well, as your doctor has probably once told you, everything in moderation.  Stress causes hormones and other chemicals to be released in the body. After a stressful event, the body needs to recover – its chemical balance needs to return to normal.

Let’s say you have one of those dogs that just obsesses over tennis balls. We all know one, right? Your dog can’t put the tennis ball down, ever, so you take him out multiple times a day for extensive games of fetch hoping he’ll get it out of his system once and for all, and at the very least you know he’s having a blast because he loves that ball, right?  The dog gets super excited during that first outing and chemicals distribute throughout his body. Before they are fully processed by his systems, you’re back out for fetch game 2…and so on throughout the day. The hormones never get a chance to completely leave his body, so they continue to build up with each game of fetch. Eventually he’s running around with adrenaline levels of a dog  in the midst of a game of fetch but he’s only lying on the couch. Or trying to lie on the couch – his adrenaline levels are probably too high to actually allow him to rest.

There are also environmental causes for stress in dogs that their owners may not be aware of. They include:

• Too little sleep;
• Too little food and/or water;
• Isolation from owner and/or other dogs;
• Not having the opportunity to go to the bathroom when needed;
• Too much noise or activity in the house;
• Too much time spent in crates or kennels; and
• Too many perceived threats such as strangers, storms, other unfriendly dogs.

If you have an excessive barker in your home and think any of these may be the cause, you must first eliminate the stressor before addressing the behavior.

Reference

Rugaas, Turid. Barking: The Sound of a Language. Wenatchee, WA: Dogwise, 2008.

Positive Reinforcement refers to a training philosophy where the goal is to enhance the human-animal bond through enrichment activities and reward-based training sessions.  It involves the use of classical and operant conditioning, basic learning theory, and a lot of fun thrown in for good measure!

But positive reinforcement is not new in the dog training world, it’s just not been popular, much to the amazement of professional trainers and behaviorists who have seen so  much success with it.

Here’s a quick overview about positive reinforcement, what it is, and what it isn’t.

Consequences

Training is, essentially, about consequences. Dogs will always do what works for them and they learn what works through trial and error. The more a behavior yields the results they are hoping for, the more they will demonstrate that behavior. This is very simple cause and effect.

In the training world, there are 4 basic types of consequences:

1. Positive reinforcement: good things start. Dogs want this to happen.
2. Negative punishment: good things stop. Dogs try to avoid this from happening.
3. Positive punishment: bad things start. Dogs try to avoid this from happening.
4. Negative reinforcement: bad things stop. Dogs want this to happen, but there are other consequences for the trainer’s actions.

For example, when teaching a dog to sit, it is common to issue them a treat once their butt hits the ground. They learn that putting their butts on the ground makes good things happen, ie, they receive a treat. This is an example of positive reinforcement.

If you’re playing with your dog and he accidentally bites you, a loud “ouch” and immediately stopping the play teaches him that biting is not a desirable behavior. Even though it was an accident on his part, it led to a good thing ending (the play stopped) so he will make sure if he wants to continue to play that he doesn’t bite.

These are the two techniques that trainers committed to positive reinforcement will use – the starting and stopping of good things to motivate the dog to behave in a desired manner.

Other trainers – those without a foundation in behavior and learning theory – rely on the next two techniques more than the first two. They teach the dog to start and stop bad things through their behavior.

Positive punishment is pretty simple – basic punishment of undesirable behaviors. This might be spanking a dog, rubbing his nose in an accident in the house, shocking him with an electronic collar, jerking his leash…the list is endless.

An example of negative reinforcement is the use of prong collars. Despite what some trainers will tell you, prong collars are uncomfortable for dogs. Combining them with leash “corrections” can be incredibly painful. Using a prong collar to teach a dog to walk nicely really only teaches them how to walk to avoid the pain and discomfort of the prongs. The dog wants the bad thing – pain and discomfort – to stop, so he adjusts his walking behavior until the pain is at a more tolerable level.

We know that this particular technique doesn’t work however, for a very simple reason. It’s doesn’t teach the dog what behavior you WANT, it only distracts him into walking to avoid pain. If you try to walk him on a standard collar and leash, his pulling behavior will resume.

Reinforcers

Most people assume that positive reinforcement only uses food to motivate the dog. This is not the case at all; anything that a dog derives pleasure from can be used as a reinforcer in training. This might include:

• Food
• Play with other dogs
• Attention from people – cuddling, affection, etc
• Play with people – tug, chase, fetch, etc

Some people say their dog isn’t food motivated, but ALL dogs are motivated by food – they do get hungry after all!  Sometimes the case is simply that the people haven’t found the right treat to motivate the dog to perform the desired behavior.  When all else fails though, a dog’s daily allotment of food/kibble can be issued bit by bit as training rewards and you can train your dog through an entire meal!

Reference

Donaldson, Jean. The Culture Clash. 2nd ed. Berkeley: James & Kenneth, 2005.