The instant your dog pauses, place a tasty treat (cheese, hotdogs, liver snacks) directly in front of his nose and say “quiet.” You are encouraging your dog to be quiet by coupling two incompatible behaviors—it's difficult for a dog to bark while sniffing and eating! Give a few more treats while he is quiet.
You can teach “quiet” by rewarding the dog with a treat between barks. You want to be clear that you are rewarding the quiet, not a bark, so use a marker — a clicker or your voice saying “yes” — at the quiet moment. Start by rewarding a quiet moment, then reward for longer and longer periods of quiet.
Your index finger in front of your nose. Practice using this hand signal with your dog in low distraction areas. Give the physical gesture and the moment your dog is quiet, even if just for a second, mark and treat.
A popular method of curtailing excessive barking is teaching the “quiet” command. Use a calm, firm voice to tell your dog to be “quiet” and positively reinforce correct behavior with treats and affection.
Teach your dog that when someone comes to the door or passes by your property, he's permitted to bark until you say “Quiet.” Allow your dog to bark three to four times. Then say “Quiet.” Avoid shouting. Just say the command clearly and calmly.
The Act makes it an offence to allow a dog to be a nuisance if it injures or endangers the health of any person, or by persistently or continually barking to such a degree that it unreasonably interferes with the peace and comfort of another person in any other premises.
Choose one simple word for the bark command. The word should also be easy to remember and used consistently, such as "speak," "bark," or "talk." You can make up your own word or short phrase, but make sure it doesn't sound too much like another cue word or your dog's name. Once again, get your dog to bark naturally.
Examples of punishment would be yelling, throwing objects, or trying to interrupt the barking by spraying water at your dog, making loud noises, or using citronella-spraying collars or shock collars.
Train your dog to respond to the word “quiet” by allowing three or four barks, then saying “quiet” in a calm, clear voice. When you say “quiet,” break the barking jag by holding his muzzle gently, dropping a loud object that distracts him or squirting him in the face with a spray bottle of water.
This is well-intended but incomplete advice – if you only ignore the behavior, your dog will probably never learn to stop barking, jumping, or pulling. Just ignoring unwanted dog behaviors misses an important piece of teaching your dog what TO do instead. Dogs learn by association.
Calming signals that are most commonly displayed by dogs overall are freezing, licking of the nose, and turning of the body away from the source of the escalation (i.e. a dog baring its teeth or growling).
Dogs may not be alone in preferring quiet
Experiments in other animals show that dogs may not be alone in enjoying some quiet time, with tamarins and marmosets shown in a 2007 study to prefer silence over music when given the choice.
Aside from yawning, other calming signals include turning the head or entire body aside, pawing, approaching in an arc, squinting, flicking the tongue or licking the nose or muzzle, sniffing the ground for no apparent reason, freezing in place, or crouching down with the front of the body.
“We find the best way to approach shy and shut down dogs is to simply give them time and space,” says Emily Goodman, Marin Humane behavior and training manager. “If we can get those dogs into a quiet foster home — or even a quiet office — it can make all the difference.”
How to stop a barking dog? Playing white noise is a great solution, because it covers up all of the other sounds that your dog is super sensitive to.
Fireworks, gunshots and vacuum cleaners are common causes of noise phobia, according to Dr. Borns-Weil. “Dogs may also become phobic of fire alarms and even cooking because they associate it with accidental triggering of the alarm,” Dr. Borns-Weil adds.
Remember that hitting a barking dog will not solve the problem. It will actually increase a dog's anxiety and fear, which can lead to more barking.
Ignore the barking and force your dog to realize that they will not be rewarded with attention for it. It's okay if your dog sees you, but don't make eye contact, don't move toward them, and don't talk to them or pet them. Use treats to encourage positive behavior and withhold them when the dog is barking.
Ignore the barking
If you begin to see that your dog is barking to get your attention, a good technique is to simply turn your back and ignore them. Make sure you aren't rewarding the dog for being noisy by giving any attention, don't talk to them, don't touch them, don't even look at them.
You'll learn how to set your dog up for success by understanding the roles of personality, age, and breed in training. From there, McMillan explains his playful, positive, and kind approach, starting with his 7 Common Commands: SIT, STAY, DOWN, COME, OFF, HEEL, and NO.
More specifically, a well-behaved pup should respond to seven directions in order to become a good canine citizen: Sit, Down, Stay, Come, Heel, Off, and No.
Dogs bark to communicate with other dogs and persons. It does not have a meaning like the words of the human language, but it represents a type of communication that reports the emotional state of the dog who is barking.
The Bottom Line
You should not put your dog in any situation in which he is stressed enough to bark all day long. This is not healthy or beneficial for the dog and will over time lead to other behavioral issues. Many dogs bark if left alone in the yard for many hours.