If your dog barks when greeted by people, there may be different dynamics at play. Some dogs are a bit intimidated by strangers and their barking is a distance-increasing signal telling the person to back away as the dog’s comfort zone is invaded. On the other hand, when a dog barks when greeted by people and the dog is super friendly and restrained by the collar and leash, there may be chances that the barking may take place out of frustration. In both cases, the barking can be reduced, but both instances may require a slightly different approach.
Dog Barks When Greeted by People to Increase Distance
This type of barking takes place when a dog is not very comfortable being around people he doesn’t know. The barking is often evoked when people engage in the “Ohhh, hi puppy!” greeting style versus folks who ignore.
Some pups may bark the moment a person looks at them and starts talking to them. In these instance, most likely the puppy has learned to associate the eye contact and talking with the person coming closer and possibly trying to pet the dog because most people do these things in sequence (first look, then baby talk, then come closer).
This type of barking can take place in puppies or dogs who haven’t been socialized much during their critical window of socialization roughly taking place between 4 and 16 weeks of age. In some cases, pups were socialized but they just weren’t exposed much to people with certain types of greeting styles.
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There are also cases where the pups, as they come into social maturity, generally between 12 and 36 months of age, start getting a bit more aloof and reserved and teenager “flakiness” may take place.
Tackling this form of barking requires that the dog’s emotional response to strangers is changed. The goal is to change the dog’s mindset from dreading people, to wanting people around as positive associations are formed. Counterconditioning using classical conditioning may work best.
Dog Barks When Greeted by People to Decrease Distance
These dogs are social butterflies by nature, but they are frustrated and bark as a result. Frustration indeed is a trigger for barking, so much so, that sometimes, showing a ball and then hiding it behind the back, can be utilized as a strategy to train a dog to bark on cue as frustration sets in.
Typically, the dog who barks out of frustration loves people, he acts very excited in their presence and wants to jump and go meet and greet anybody who is almost in reach. When he’s prevented from doing so, he goes into a barking frenzy and the barking decreases as he gets closer and he gets to engage and interact with his newly met friends which often entails lots of tail wagging, licking and possibly even jumping behaviors.
This is the opposite of what happens with the dog who bark to increase distance, as these latter fellow will increase the barking and may even put a more intimidating display the closer the person gets.
Tackling this form of barking doesn’t require much an emotional response change, as the dog already likes people. In this case, the focus is more on training the dog more impulse control and calmer behaviors around people. Operant conditioning may work best in this case.
In other words, the dog should be taught to perform alternate behaviors that help the relax rather than bark. The dog can be taught that the triggering event that evokes the barking ( e.g. person talking to the dog) becomes a cue for the dog to perform a behavior such as targeting the owner’s hand or making eye contact which is heavily rewarded.
Tackling the Distance-Increasing Barking
Tackling distance-increasing barking takes some time as the dog’s emotional response must be changed. It’s important to manange the dog’s environment to prevent rehearsal of the problem behavior and keep an eye on the dog’s body language for signs of feeling unease. Following are some tips.
Find the Exact Trigger/Triggers
What exactly sets your dog off? Is it people making eye contact? People bending down at his level? People talking to your dog? People moving into your dog’s space? Acknowledging what sets your dog off is important as it gives you a level of control since you know exactly what triggers the behavior. Sometimes, it’s a whole incremental chain of behaviors people do that causes the dog to get increasingly more and more worried until he explodes into a barking frenzy.
Manage the Environment
[adinserter block=”1″]Managing the dog’s environment is important to so prevent rehearsal of the undesirable behaviors. The more a dog is put in a situation where he feels uneasy, the more the dog practices the barking and soon, it may become a default behavior that will take place more and more in the same or similar circumstance. Practice make perfect. Managing the dog’s environment in this case, entails protecting the dog from exposure to scenarios and situations where the barking seems more likely to occur. In other words, you will have to find ways to prevent the triggers from occurring in the first place.
Examples of managing the dog’s environment may therefore encompass keeping the dog at a certain distance from people, asking people to not approach the dog (owners may say the dog is “in training” and not ready to face certain types of encounters) or asking people to simply ignore the dog. E.g. “Hello there, can you please ignore my dog as we chit-chat? We are doing some training.”
Keep the Dog Under Thresold
Keeping a dog under threshold means preventing him from reaching the point where things start breaking down and the barking starts. This entails keeping a close eye on the dog’s body language for subtle signs indicating that he is getting more and more uncomfortable. Not always these signs are readily recognized as they can be quite subtle. It may be just a quick nervous lip lick, dilation of the pupils or a wrinkling of the forehead as the person comes closer and shows interest in the dog.
Create Positive Associations
[adinserter block=”2″]The process of counterconditioning entails creating positive associations so to change the dog’s emotional response. In this case, with the dog under threshold, it’s a good idea to feed high value treats every time the dog encounters people. It is best if the dog owner initially feeds the dog in these cases since the person getting too close to feed a cookie may cause ambivalent approach-avoidance behaviors.
These socialization exercises should be done gradually, starting first with people who ignore the dog and then incrementally increasing criteria by exposing the dog (always at a comfrotable and safe distance) to people who will perform certain triggering behaviors but in a slightly less intimidating form.
So for instance, if the barking is triggered by somebody who loudly expresses excitement upon seeing the pup saying “ohhhh what a cute pupppyyyyy!” the person should saying in a lower, less excited tone of voice while the owner feeds treats, then gradually building up in intensity over several sessions. Very important: when the talking stops, the treat delivery stops.
Ideally, to help the dog succeed, these sessions would be done with volunteer friends who the dog is not familiar with who are instructed on what to do so to have a good level of control of the situation. Even better, having a dog trainer help out is a plus so to provide guidance and a safe and correct implementation of the above described methods.
What if the Dog Ends Up Barking?
An “oops” moment can always happen and is expected to pop up sometimes in the initial stages of changing the emotional response. In that case, when a dog barks when greeted by people, it may help to move a bit farther back to give the dog relief while recognizing what triggered the barking. This helps to gauge better the distance for next time while making a mental note to self to prevent exposure of the same type and intensity in the future at least until better associations are made. Once at a farther distance, it may help to reward the dog several times for not barking so that the session has ended on a “positive note.”
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