Muzzling The Problem Barker

written by Butch Goodwin
       of                     

Northern Flight Retrievers  
The Retriever Journal  2003

Most of the time, trying to discover and correct the actual cause or root of a training or temperament problem will solve a whole host of the symptoms that you actually see on the surface. Fixing problems in this manner is simply good training procedure. But there are situations that each of us finds ourselves in when we simply can’t weave all the way back through the dog’s training structure to cure the “disease” that is at the root of a problem. In other words, there are times that it simply makes more sense (often because of circumstances) to mask the symptoms in order to be able to get through the day, and then concern yourself with dealing with the long-term cure at another time.

 One example of this is stopping a dog from barking or whining in his crate in your truck or in a motel room while on the road. We’ve all heard it or had it happen: A hunter stops his truck to look over a new hunting area or to go into a restaurant, and the dog starts incessantly barking. Or, the hunter has to leave his dog in his crate in the truck overnight in a motel parking lot or alone in a crate in the room while he goes for some dinner, and the dog raises a commotion, often garnering complaints from patrons in adjacent rooms.

  Let’s think for just a moment about what is at the basis of most barking problems, and then we will move ahead to temporarily mask the symptoms once we understand why it is happening. In all likelihood, unless it is a deep-seated congenital problem, barking is probably more of the end result of a man-caused (actually, “man-allowed” might be a better description) problem. My immediate thought is that a habitual barker has never been shown clear leadership by his owner and, in an effort to demonstrate his dominant position in the pecking order -and in the place where he feels the most restraint (the confinement of a crate) - he lashes out to try to assert that dominance, get attention, and show that he can be annoying enough to twist the situation to his benefit and get set free. Along that same line of thinking, it is also possible that he hasn’t been adequately conditioned to living and traveling in a crate ahead of time or that he is, quite simply, barking out of boredom.

 But in all of these cases, the dog is trying to get the attention of his owner and annoy him to the extent that he will release him from captivity. And unfortunately, if the owner is not prepared, that is exactly what he will probably do to shut him up: Let the dog out of the crate and up on the bed in the motel room. That’s what the dog wanted, and it’s what he got - he wins and realizes that if he continues the same behavior the next time he is locked up or left alone, he can again be aggravating enough to get released. In reality, he has just jumped up a rung or two on the ladder of the pecking order. Who’s training whom here?

While it’s great to understand the psychology behind a dog’s barking, there are times that the owner simply must be out of the truck or out of the room and the dog must remain in his crate and be depended upon to not create a ruckus. The most obvious way to mask the symptom of barking is to strap on a bark collar. Bark collars are very effective at silencing the majority of dogs, and it often only takes one or two mistakes for a dog to catch on to remaining quiet.

 But most dogs get rather “collar wise” in short order. They learn that when the collar is around their neck, they are responsible for controlling their barking; but when it’s not there, they can bark to their heart’s content. Thus, this can lead to the bark collar being kept on the dog for increasingly longer periods of time, which can result in worn-off hair and even open sores on the dog’s neck.

 There are also a significant number of dogs that learn to “bark through” the sting of the electronic shock produced by a bark collar. Let me explain. For a bark collar to be effective, there must be a short “quiet” time after giving off its impulse for the capacitor to rebuild the charge to its full strength. A chronic barker or extremely tough character can learn to bark, absorb the resulting shock, and then rapidly and loudly continue barking, which will essentially not allow the capacitor to rebuild to an effective level. In this situation, nothing has been gained and, perhaps, the bark collar has created the exact opposite effect - it has actually increased the frequency or volume of the dog’s barking.

 So bark collars, although effective with a vast majority of dogs, can have their drawbacks. And unless the dog is conditioned to the meaning of the impulse ahead of time and that he must keep quiet or get punished, they can produce negative results. Once when staying at a popular motel on opening weekend in a prime pheasant-hunting area, I remember someone had left his German shorthair in a crate in his truck in the motel parking lot with a recently purchased bark collar strapped in place while he went to dinner with several of his hunting buddies. When they returned, the police were trying to break into the truck, and a crowd was gathered around. It seems that the dog had barked, the collar had shocked him, and he started screaming and screaming, causing the collar to continue “biting” him. Doubtless to say this fellow had a lot of explaining to do, and many of the non-hunting motel visitors thought that he should have been charged with animal abuse.

Giving in to what the dog wants - a nap on the hotel room bed - is a sure way to encourage future barking problems. If he wins once, he'll always expect to win.

Bark collars certainly can be a very effective method of stopping a dog from barking, but they are not a panacea. Let’s examine some of the other options for curbing barking or keeping dogs quiet when traveling.

 An excellent way of stopping a dog from barking is to squirt him directly in the face with a mixture of vinegar and water. For some reason, dogs seem to hate being squirted with a mixture of about half vinegar and half water from a squirt bottle. And if you drive an enclosed SUV or minivan once the stuff dries, there is little or no odor to have to deal with.

I think that most professional trainers would agree that the majority of dogs that come for training are spoiled. Now, I don’t know that spoiling your dog is totally bad as long as he also learns to be a good citizen. Part of your responsibility to your dog and to your fellow hunters is to condition your dog ahead of time to traveling in a crate in a vehicle and staging in a crate without creating a commotion. A good way to aid in the conditioning process is by giving him something to chew on or occupy him in the crate at home and then taking it along on the road. My dogs love Nylabones and will chew on one for hours with little resultant disintegration to the bone itself. When I go on a long driving trip or put one of the dogs on an airplane, the largest sized Nylabone goes along in the crate to keep them occupied.

 When my pups are youngsters, after their last outdoor airing at night, I put them in their crate with a Kong toy partially filled with peanut butter to keep them busy and quiet. By the time they have adequately worked the last of the peanut butter out of the Kong, they are usually worn out, have forgotten that they are confined inside of a crate, and they’ll sleep through the night. As they get older and begin traveling and stay in the truck or in a motel room in their crate, I cram dog biscuits or other treats into a large Kong and let them occupy their time working at trying to get the treats out. This keeps them quiet when left alone for short periods of time.

 A chukar hunter friend of mine had a very serious problem with one of his wire-hairs barking in the crate in the back of his truck. It got so bad that his other wirehair began barking to get equal billing. He bought a couple of those insulated camouflage colored crate covers, and the barker miraculously shut up. When the weather is hot, he puts ice in his two dogs’ crates, and the insulation seems to work like one of those soft coolers keeping the dogs comfortable. When it is cold, the insulation retains the dogs’ body heat. But perhaps more impor­tantly, my friend seems to think that because the chronic barker can’t see out of the crate and watch what’s going on, he has less reason to bark and remains silent.

 So if you find yourself traveling with a chronic barker and don’t feel that you are in a position to be able to get to the root of the problem and actually correct it once and for all take some time to think about why he is creating a commotion and then act accordingly. Just remember, going to him and opening the crate is exactly what wants. If you give him what he wants, it will elevate his position in the pecking order and lower yours. And the barking will likely only get worse.