Barking, Decoded
5 cards · about a minute
Barking is information
Barking is a dog’s only broadcast channel, so the useful question is never how to stop it but what it is currently reporting.
The alarm
Sharp repeated barks aimed at a door or a window are a report rather than a decision: acknowledge it, go and look, and the dog can stand down.
The demand
A bark that starts when you sit down and stops when you get up has been trained by everybody who ever got up, including you.
The frustration
A dog barking at the end of a lead towards another dog is usually thwarted rather than aggressive, and distance answers it long before correction does.
The empty bark
Rhythmic barking at nothing, for long stretches, is a dog with nothing else to do. That one is an enrichment problem and will not be trained away.