Barking

by Michael
(Rainbow Beach, Australia)

Hi I have a male rottie who is 9 months and he has been sleeping outside for ever and i have had him since week 12 and not a problem.

He never used to bark, but the past week and a bit he has been barking a lot at night and also during the day.

Do you know any good ways to stop this?







Hi Michael
I guess it depends on why he's barking! Is it possible that he's hearing other dogs barking, or wild animals making a noise? Or that other animals are coming onto your property?

At this age he's just beginning to develop his guarding instincts and these sorts of things can trigger him to bark (in order to warn you), which is natural. You really don't want to prevent him from doing this, but an adolescent pup can get a bit over-zealous about it at first.

Perhaps you could keep him indoors at night for a while in order to break this habit? Or it could be that he's bored and may be awake more at night and barking just to keep himself entertained. I'd make sure he has lots of safe, sturdy toys and playthings outdoors so that if he's not sleeping he has something to do.

There are 'no bark' collars that can be used for nuisance barking, but I wouldn't recommend using them unless there's no other alternative. It's much better to try to find the cause of the problem and rectify that, than to simply mask the resulting symptoms (ie the barking).

Hope this helps a bit. Best of luck.

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