“Help, my puppy is barking at me when playing what can I do?” If your puppy is barking at you when playing, you need to closely monitor the situation and evaluate your interactions. During play, this type of barking may sometimes be a bit challenging to eradicate considering that barking during play may be a natural thing for many pups. It’s similar to children squealing and screaming in excitement at the playground. It’s important to adhere to some important guidelines when playing with puppies who have a tendency to bark at the people that they are playing with. It’s always best to prevent possible behavior problems nipping them in the bud, rather than fixing them later.
Puppies Don’t Have Much Impulse Control
Many new puppy owners have big expectations when they first get their puppies. They want to do everything right and ensure their puppies grow to become wonderful companions. This is great as it provides commitment to a wonderful start.
It is quite normal therefore to be concerned about some puppy behaviors. Just like new moms are worried about their babies crying through the night and possible learning to cry for attention!
It’s important to understand that it is perfectly normal for puppies to want to engage in rowdy play and this often involves barking. Puppies don’t have much impulse control and this is normal. Training is all about helping puppies attain more impulse control and this is best done with gentle guidance.
Sometimes puppy owners need to be reminded that having a 12-week old puppy is roughly the equivalent of having a 5 year old child. Do we expect a 5 year old child to contain his excitement at Disney World?
It’s important to not expose pups to overwhelming situations that allow them to rehearse rowdy, out-of-control behaviors. Starting slower and with less commotion and then gradually working up to larger venues helps the pup succeed.
For example, if play with children gets your puppy to excited, maybe start taking him to a playground and let him observe children playing from a distance. Reward calm behaviors. Then, start exposing him to calm children (older children that you can give directions are a good start). It’s best to start with one child versus a whole group of children reaching out and petting and potentially scaring the pup.
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Meeting the Basics
When puppies are barking a lot for attention or for play, it’s important to evaluate whether all the pup’s needs are being met. A pup’s barking may sometimes stem from boredom or frustration because they need to be provided with more mental challenges and outlets throughout the day.
If you are away for most of the day, you will need to dedicate some time to meet your pup’s basic needs when you come home. Socialization, daily walks, training, play and brain games are some resources that can help.
Make sure that you mix in some brain games that involve your participation and some that encourage independent play. You may start with some that involve your participation such as targeting and attention games, but then, in the evening, when you want to catch up with emails read a book or watch TV, you may want to encourage independent brain games and play.
Fill up a Kong Wobbler with a portion of the kible, fill a bottle with kibble, scatter some kibble around the house, fill up a Kong with wet food and then try freezing it, this can provide long-lasting entertainment.
Tone Down the Game
“Help, my puppy is barking at me when playing, what can I do? “You may perhaps want to evaluate exactly what triggers your puppy to bark during playtime. Some games may make him more likely to bark.
Compile a list of games that seem to revv him up more. Also, make a note of what part of the game exactly triggers the barking. Is your puppy barking when you are about to toss a ball? When your puppy chases you around the house?
Next, find a way to offer the same games in a less exciting manner or incorporate some obedience exercises into them. Some games you may have to set aside for a bit so that you can stick to the games that make him less excited.
For instance, if your puppy tends to bark a lot when you toss a toy, make sure that you don’t toss the toy when your puppy is barking. If you do, guess what? You just reinforced the barking and all its associated excitement!
Instead, ask your puppy to sit (many dogs won’t bark while sitting) and toss the toy when your puppy is sitting nicely and quiet. Adding some obedience mixed into puppy play is a great way to bond while implementing more impulse control. And the great part is that you may not even need to incorporate treats to reward the sits/downs/ and stays. Tossing the ball or resuming play is a reward on its own!
The No-Bark Rule
A no-bark rule can tone down the playing a bit. In other words, barking makes the game abruptly stop. So you play with your puppy and as soon as your pup starts barking, stop in your tracks. Turn into a tree. You can add a verbal cue if you want to mark the happening. For instance, you can say “game over!” cross your arms and turn around.
Now, the puppy may bark out of frustration because the game just stopped. Hold your ground and turn around and interact with him only when he stops barking. Rinse and repeat as much as needed until your puppy gets the message that the game ends the moment he barks.
If you notice a pattern of your puppy barking, you turning around, your puppy acting quiet and then the barking starting all over again, you may need to tone down the game a bit and incorporate some training to calm him down a bit.
So for instance, if you are playing, and your puppy barks, turn around, then when your puppy is quiet, resume playing, but do a game that makes him less excited such as ask him to target your hand and toss a kibble, or ask him to sit and toss and a treat.
[adinserter block=”1″]Time for a Nap
Puppies at times just act like toddlers, when they are tired they risk getting cranky and this may lead to, guess what? More barking! It’s not a bad idea to give the barking puppy a time-out at times.
If you use a crate for napping, escort your puppy to the crate but make sure that you don’t act angry or frustrated. It’s very important that your puppy doesn’t associate the crate with punishment.
Just act matter of fact, give your puppy a safe chew toy or a Kong to play with a bit and close him in the crate. Your pup may chew on these to relax and calm down before snoozing. Placing a blanket on top of the crate may help encourage relaxation.
Teach an Enough Cue
Given the opportunity, puppies may love to play all day. They may have a hard time coming to accept when play ends and this may lead to a barking frenzy because there’s so much contrast between play and quiet/boredom.
While playing with your puppy is important, it’s not feasible nor recommended to always give in to a pup’s requests to play. Doing so would risk keeping your puppy in an aroused or a semi-aroused state from the moment you come home from work until the end of the day.
Your puppy may get easily frustrated when play stops which may lead to barking in your face and pawing in hopes of continuing the game. These pups needs to understand that barking won’t grant neither attention nor play.
If you happen to ever reinforce your puppy barking with attention/play then you would have rewarded persistence, which makes the behavior more and more difficult to eradicate. As part of your relationship with you puppy it’s important that you set clear boundaries as to when play starts and play ends and sticking t your decision, no matter what.
Have you ever watched dogs play? At some point the play has to come to a stop. One of the two parties has had enough, so he withdraws from the play session and walks away. He then lies down to his spot and if the other dog goes back to him to play he’ll turn his head and look away. Dog with good social skills get the message. Puppies… not so much… because puppies are often lack social skils so it may take a bit more practice.
You can practice something similar to what dogs do when you are done playing with your puppy. Sit down on the couch and say “that’s enough” looking away from the pup with your chin pointed upward. Stay very still with your arms crossed. Avoid saying meaningless things such as “we’ll play later” or “knock it off.” Your dog won’t understand and will actually stare at you more trying to figure out what you want.
If your pup gets the message, great! Most pups or young dogs though have too much energy to just give up. To make the message clear, you may have to get up and shuffle forward a step or two into the pup’s space to get him to move away. Avoid pushing with you hands or using your feet to shove him away as your pup may interpret that as a way to start a game (dogs love to paw at each other during play time).
You may have to turn your head repeatedly several times for your pup to get the message. eventually though he’ll get bored and try to find something else to do. Make sure when you practice “enough” the first times that you leave around some toys he doesn’t get to play it too often at first so to make it easy to make a good choice. If your pup ignores the toys and just goes to lie down, make sure to praise reward by giving him a toy stuffed with treats.
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