Labrador Retrievers and barking trouble
Here is another question I received from a reader:
“I was wondering if you could help me with my new lab. I picked him up yesterday from another family. he is 4 months old and amazing. He is very loving, but everytime i leave my house for even a second he freaks out and starts yelping and barking for me to come back. …. I need to teach him how to be quiet quickly or i know they will make me get rid of him. Thanks a lot! your input will be much appreciated.”
It’s usually better to let puppies learn that their barking won’t cause you to come back. So that when you leave, you just ignore them and they will eventually learn that their barking does nothing, especially if you wait to return until they’ve stopped barking. If you’re able to do this exercise once or twice a day even, it would be a good help. But in your situation, you might not have the opportunity.
Therefore, you will need to take a more concentrated approach to training your lab. The first thing I would try to do is a trick I learned from another trainer. Their advice was this: “Set your dog up to fail.” This is what I would do: get a noisemaker like an old soup can with rocks or beads inside, or a handheld radio, or even a good, big key ring. If you don’t want to use a noisemaker, fill a small squirt bottle with water and have it set to a substantial misting (don’t do a hard spray, but don’t use a really light mist or your lab won’t get the point). If you wanted, you could use both.
Whatever object you choose is going to be deterrent. Try to do this exercise when your neighbors will be least bothered, because the more surprising and loud you make it, the more effective it will be.
Here’s what to do: go outside and close the door as if you were going out normally, but as soon as your lab starts barking (which sounds like it will be almost immediately), open the door quickly and say “NO!” firmly in a deep, loud voice while shaking your noisemaker or squirting your lab on the muzzle and face with the water. Then either right away or giving a few minutes in between, try the exercise again.
The other important piece of the exercise will be rewarding your puppy profusely when he is quiet. Make sure you have some kind of treat with you (even just a dog food kernel will work fine– they aren’t picky) and if after a few times teaching him NOT to bark, you should be able to go outside and wait for a few seconds while he decides whether to bark or not. After you’ve firmly established the negative (his barking), as soon as he starts hesitating or not barking even for a couple seconds, open the door and praise him thoroughly with treats. After that, repeat. Every time you go out and he barks, burst through the door as loudly and as surprisingly as you can and say NO.
One more thing: try not to let your dog see the object (squirt bottle or noisemaker), because if he learns that when you go out with it he gets punished, he will stay quiet only when he sees you carry the object with you out the door.
Using this exercise, your labrador should learn pretty quickly what you’re trying to teach him. Try doing this as many times a day as you can (try doing this at least 20 times or so) for the next couple days and see how he progresses. Feel free to reply with more questions, and please let me know how it goes!
-Lauren
P.S. — On February 23rd, a professional dog trainer revealed all her secrets– and I recorded the call! Want to listen in for free?
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