Stopping a Pair of Pups in Venice Beach with a Dog Barking Problem

For this Venice Beach dog training session, we used counterconditioning to stop 1 year-old Terrier mix Snowy and her 1 year-old Labradoodle roommate Bill to stop barking.

When you have dogs that bark at sounds outside of the home, counterconditioning is a great strategy to use. The idea is to create a positive association with the sounds that the dog likes to bark at.

Many people focus on disagreeing with dogs by telling them to be quiet. While this seems logical to humans, it can actually reinforce the barking behavior since all attention is validating unless it’s abusive.  And if you live in an apartment or have neighbors that are relatively close, it’s natural to feel the need to silence your dogs when they bark.

The Best Way to Stop Dog Barking

As a Dog Behaviorist, I have learned that a far more effective way to stop dog barking is with counterconditioning. If your dog likes to bark at sounds it hears outside of your home, you should check out the free positive dog training video below.

The great thing about this easy way to stop dogs from barking is that the dog actually learns to like the thing that they used to bark at. It takes time and practice, but anyone can do this exercise, even if you’re not a professional mix breed dog trainer.

I recommended that the guardians make a list of all of the sounds that the dogs bark at, then start working at them systematically with this positive approach to stopping dog barking. Practicing in short one to two minute practice sessions multiple times a day will generate the fastest results.

As I mentioned in the video, there are a number of tips you can use to reduce dog barking such as getting the dog exercise ahead of time or distracting them with other, more desirable activities. When you combine these tricks to stop dog barking with the counterconditioning technique I demonstrated in the video, you can make pretty quick progress.

Additional Tips for Reactive Dogs

Because Snowy had a very stressful puppyhood, some of his anxiety and stress is likely genetic. While he is the more confident of the two dogs, I did discuss the potential of utilizing Fluoxetine to help the dogs feel more comfortable and relaxed while their humans work on rehabilitating their unwanted behaviors.

I would like to come back and see these dogs again in a month or two after the medication has had a chance to take affect. There are a number of exercises we can use to help Bill gain more confidence around new people and Snowy is a character that probably could benefit from an additional session or two as well.

We covered a number of other tips in this in-home Venice Beach dog training session. To help the guardians remember them all, we filmed a roadmap to success summary video that you can check out below.