Clean Run - August 2012 - 25

Whatever your dog’s personality, figure out the best way to help him get ready and then establish a ritual. Cooling Down
treat. Normally this is taught to dogs that are stressed, anxious, or reactive, but it’s an elegant way to turn a barker into a very quiet dog, quickly. The reasons is because we are rewarding behaviors, such as a closed mouth or nose twitching, that just do not go well with barking. The more we reward taking a breath, the more the dog naturally starts offering us this behavior, just as he would offer a sit or a down after getting lots of treats for that. If we ask for and reinforce taking a breath multiple times through a training session, and during exciting transitional times like entering class, etc., we will create a dog that looks at us and “poofs” his nose out pointedly to make sure we notice he is inhaling and should get treats. I love watching big-time barkers get converted into these quiet, “watch as I poof my nose at you” dogs. Once the dogs have the initial understanding of what behavior is getting rewarded, you can pair the take a breath behavior with eye contact so it becomes a focus and inhale exercise. There is a lot of information on teaching the behaviors and games mentioned here in the original Control Unleashed book as well as in the newer book Control Unleashed: The Puppy Program.

I’ve also worked with dogs that need a mental cooling down period after an agility run. It depends on the individual dog as to what protocol I will suggest, but often I like to simply take the dog for a brief sniffing walk/pee outside after their run, and then give them something to chew on in their crate. Both the walking/sniffing and chewing are ways that the dog’s adrenaline level from work can start to come down, and the dog can transition back into resting mode.

Taking a Breath

The handler who wrote this question mentioned that she had tried ignoring the dog until he stopped barking, and then treated him. If this is something you have tried and given up on, I can tell you why it usually fails: you have to reward a specific behavior; you cannot reward a concept like “quiet.” So for you to “wait it out” simply allows your dog to keep practicing barking until he is out of breath, and the treat at the end of the barking cycle is not going to do much to get your point across. This is why I like to teach barking dogs a frequently used CU exercise called “taking a breath.” This exercise comes from veterinary behaviorist Dr. Karen Overall and is used along with her Relaxation Protocol, which I use all the time. This behavior consists simply of the dog’s closing his mouth— or, if his mouth is already closed, flaring his nostrils—and in doing so, inhaling deeply. It is the inhalation that earns a

In Conclusion

If you are frustrated by a barking dog, and well-meaning people keep telling you to do stuff that’s just not working for you, take heart. Once you approach the barking problem from a more “holistic” perspective, barking will not feel like a problem to you any longer. It will just be part of the conversation, and eventually it won’t be—because you really can get a quiet dog, if you want one. That isn’t to say your dog will be, or should be, quiet all the time, but within the teaching contexts we are discussing, he can be. D

Leslie McDevitt, MLA, CPDT, CDBC is a dog behavior consultant and agility enthusiast who lives with her pack near Philadelphia. Leslie specializes in behavior modification for stressed and reactive performance dogs and is the author of the popular book Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog from Clean Run Productions.

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Clean Run - August 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - August 2012