What should I do about a dog who barks too frequently?

Is it your dog? If so, they make collars to correct frequent, unwanted barking. It teaches your dog when it is and isnt acceptable to bark. If its not yours, mention the problem to the owners and suggest the collar to them.

Woops, noticed there was a similar question here:

http://www.fluther.com/disc/1528/effective-methods-to-help-dogs-curb-their-bark/

Citronella collars are quite effective!

get him a shock collar or a muzzle

if your not into shock therapy, drink an aluminium can of soda fill up with pennies “if needed check your sofa cushions for some,” put some tape on the opening, shake it everytime your dog starts barking it will get there attention, work for my dog, for about two weeks until he got the picture, some also use waterguns or a spray bottle, shoot them in the nose. A few methods good luck hope this helps.

if its still a puppy, you can condtion it so that when you say a keyword, it will stop barking. Whenever it barks, just say “no” and tap it on the nose. After about a month of this it will get the idea that barking is bad

I should have asked this first, how old is your dog and what kind is it?

there are a lot of bad answers here.

putting a shock collar on a barking dog is like smacking a piano student every time he hits a wrong note. it is a violent, abusive practice and while it might stop the dog from barking, it will also teach the dog to live in fear.

i feel that a muzzle is equally cruel, but i also have to point out that it only prevents biting, not barking.

the CORRECT way to prevent a dog from barking is to show the dog that she will not get what she wants when she barks. she barks when she’s excited, so try this. when you come home at the end fo the day, and she’s excited to see you, and she’s barking to show her happiness, do not look at her, pet her, greet her in any way until she stops barking. when she sees your strange behavior, she will start trying different approaches to get your attention. do not give in until she stops barking. the moment she’s really quiet, immediately praise her, pet her, love her in every way.

this will take a few days at minimum. do not expect her to stay quiet for long on the first day. instead, slowly work up to longer and longer periods of silence before you praise her.

will work like a charm, it you’re patient. and then you won’t be abusing your dog, and everyone will be happy.

oh, she’s old. and barking right now.

i want to comment on samkusnetz. i’ve heard often that this kind of conditioning works for dogs, but it is very slow and not a surefire method.

i saw on a show called Dog Whisperers that the simple answer is to use a “No Bull Crap” attitude, if you will. if you tell the dog to do something EVERY SINGLE TIME, it will eventually learn. and i don’t mean like after a month or even a few weeks—the Dog Whisperer had each dog doing what it wouldn’t previously do in no more than 3 “takes.”

My advice: tell the dog “NO” sternly everytime it barks. use a spray bottle. do something. be consistent, not passive.

I agree with Sam. Shock collars are cruel and teaches fear. But I’m not sure an older dog will re-learn. His bad behavior has been reinforced too many years.

follow thru is important. i’ve got 5 dogs, one barks non-stop. I’ve tried everything.
shock collar(made me feel horrible), citronella, spray bottle, time out, muzzle AND professional training.

A combination of the muzzle (i only put it on rarely, just the mention of the word an she’ll stop barking) and a spray of water helps. She’s gotten better, but you have to be consistent. They have to learn over a period of time that barking doesn’t please you…
Consistentence is the key.

I agree with the penny in a can trick. It’s worked on all of our dogs. They only bark when someone comes to the door now or on command. Or if you can’t find pennies, use a few rocks.

We used a correction chain with our dog. Now don’t get upset, this is a small chain that you throw on the ground next to the dog, not at the dog, and the noise scares him right out of barking. @much2smile4 uses a very similar device.

bark with it, its so much fun

I’m with the dog whisperer; consistent, not passive.

there are other collars aside from shock collars that can correct constant barking. such a collar would be a citronella collar. i’ve found it very useful. the collar is worn for situations that will cause the behavior. when she starts barking her it sprays her with a harmless spray of either scented or scentless citronella. it does no harm to the dog but they usually hate the smell and stop the unwanted behavior instantly. there are few dogs that are stubborn enough to bark through the spray but it works for most. they have one that you can control by giving them a warning beep and then a short spray.

after a while they will only need to hear the beep to stop the unwanted behavior and then you should eventually have no use for the collar. i taught my dachshund not to bark constantly as well as the boundaries of the yard so he could go off leash but i still had some control over him.

another collar is the ultrasonic collar. it emits high pitched noise to stop the behavior. i have found these to work less than the citronella collar if at all.

@faithful: I’ve been searching for some remedies for one of our dogs and will try the citronella collar. It seems our largest dog barks all day when we’re at work and I know for sure when I’m home during the day like now then she barks at what seems like everything. Us telling her, “no barking” and squirting with a water pump gun hasn’t done a thing in 2 months time. I’m afraid of being reported to our property manager because of her, she’s so loud.

citronella collars worked great for our female but all it did was make the male squeal like a 500lb pig instead of barking. I mean, it is Loud !

@Aster: We’ve got a shock bark collar now that we alternate between our 3 dogs, two of them have responded well but my doggie just goes beserk in panic and shorts the thing out so I’ll try the spray soon and let you all know how it turns out.

I know someone who used a shock collar and the dog actually learned to “bark” without setting it off. The non-bark noise was not as loud as a full-on bark but it was still a loud noise.

Also I think shock collars are cruel.

So, just don’t use them.

@chutterhanban I hope you do realize the Dog Whisperer is heavily edited. Something that might look like it takes only 3 takes may in actuality be a lot longer. Not that I’m necessarily anti-Dog Whisperer but I used to work in a shelter and come across annoying Cesar Milan wannabes all the time. They think they knew it all just cos they saw a couple of episodes. samkusnetz has the best answer. The dog is probably barking because it has learned it gets rewarded with it by getting attention. Remove the attention it’s seeking when it barks and she should eventually get the message.

Innotek bark collars- they work! I read the reviews on Amazon and picked the model that was toted as stopping the bark with just one shock. Here we are, four months later and our dogs no longer have us in fear of being evicted. We now strap the collars on loosely and the dogs still don’t bother to bark. I wish we’d had these collars years ago.