Tips to Stop a Yorkie Rescue’s Barking

For this Los Angeles dog training session, we teach 9 year-old Yorkie Granny to Focus as well as some other tips to stop her from barking.

Stopping a dog from barking isnt really teaching the dog a quiet command. You can teach a dog to be quiet, but in order for that to work, the dog has to see and respect you as an authority figure. This isnt accomplished by punishing or correcting the dog. In fact, correct a dog for barking often backfires.

As one of LA’s Dog Behavior experts, I learned a long time ago that barking is a symptom of a larger problem; often the dog thinking it has more authority than the human or that it needs to protect or be possessive of the human. I shared a number of tips to stop dog barking that were really more helping the human understand the things she did to reward or enhance the behavior.

Redirecting a dog’s attention away from things before it starts reacting is one of the secrets to teaching a dog to stop barking. Ive found a great way to do that is to teach a dog to focus on something they really like; their human.

By training the dog to focus on command, Granny’s guardian will have a powerful tool to stop her dog from barking. Combined with the other tools, dog behavior tips and exercises we covered in this session, Granny’s guardian will be able to create a healthy leader follower dynamic. When a dog sees and respects its human as a leader, barking isn’t necessary to bark to alert or “protect” the human if they show they have the task under control.

To help Granny’s guardian remember all the dog behavior tips I shared in this in home LA dog training session, we recorded a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.