Tips to Stop Dogs Barking at Windows in Santa Monica

For this Santa Monica dog training session we worked with 5 year-old Lhasa Apso Georgie; sharing tips to stop dogs barking at windows.

After discussing Georgie’s backstory, allergies and his guardians priorities for our session, I learned that Georgie has a book! How cool is that? This is one dapper dog!

We introduced and loaded a marker word, used hand targeting to perfect our timing, discuss the importance of recognizing and rewarding desired behavior by celebrating it, how to read cut off signals and general dog body language.

If you want to stop dogs barking at windows, it’s important to go back to the basics. Many dogs bark because they are insecure or don’t understand things.

I always want to make sure that my clients are communicating what they actually mean to their dog. Prior to my sessions with my cleints, there is usually a lot of miscommunication. This can turn into frustration which often manifest as unwanted dog behavior issues like dog barking.

After covering all of these basics, we headed out to a park near Georgie‘s home as one of the issues his guardian wanted help with was his dog reactivity.

Georgie did wonderful. He was able to meet a few dogs without reacting. His guardian had reported to me that she was anxious that he was going to snap at one of the dogs. I made sure to discuss how important it is that she is confident as tension can travel down a leash. But she also needs to read and react to his body language and cut off signals. If she does, she can help move Georgie away before he feels the need to handle the situation himself.

After sharing a number of tips on dog dog socialization and interaction, we headed back to her home so that we could work on the primary issue, how to stop dogs barking at windows.

Georgie’s barking problem was most certainly amplified by his home. His apartment has a wall comprised primarily of windows that face out onto the walkway that the neighbors used to access their apartments.

How to Stop Dogs Barking at Windows

With a wall full of windows and regular foot traffic, it’s no wonder that Georgie has developed a barking problem. In his case, Georgie is barking to make the other dogs or people go away. And in his mind, it works. When he barks at someone, they disappear.

Georgie doesn’t understand that these people are passing by the hallway innocently. He thinks they are invading his territory. And because he didn’t really have a job, Georgie has developed a barking problem that gets worse each time he barks.

Anytime you’re trying to modify dog behavior, it’s important that you do everything you can to prevent the dog from practicing the unwanted behavior. I went over a trick that the guardian can use on the bottom of her window that will help take away the reward for Georgie.

But I also wanted to help the guardian change how Georgie thinks about people passing by the window, not just prevent him from seeing them.

I pulled out my camera and handed it to his guardian so that she could record me as I went through an easy way to stop stop dogs barking at windows.

Normally when I shoot these videos, I try to go step-by-step through how to do the process. Unfortunately we did not have anyone to play the part of a guest passing by the windows, so I did more narration than normal.

Fortunately, this is a fairly easy exercise, provided the guardian is able to find a distance where Georgie is more interested in the spoon then barking at the person. She may need to rearrange her furniture when she practices so that Georgie only has a small window to view the passersby.

Once Georgie is able to look at people passing by the windows without barking, his guardian can start moving him closer to the windows. But she needs to make sure that she moves closer very progressively.

The most important part of this trick to stop stop dogs barking at windows is to go at the dog’s pace. That means not moving closer until the dog is comfortable licking the spoon at the greater distance.

I suggested the guardian recruit some friends with dogs who can come by and walk by the window on cue. Being able to talk to somebody on the phone and direct them as to when to start walking, change the speed or move out of sight is infinitely helpful.

I’d like to see the guardian practicing this exercise to stop dogs barking at windows three or more times a week in short 5 to 10 minute practice sessions. The sessions themselves should be broken up into practice (1-2 minutes) followed by rest  (1-3 minutes), then return to work on the barking problem.

After practicing having the person pass by several times, Georgie and his human can head into the bedroom  chill out, give belly rubs, etc) for a couple minutes. The people outside will need to just hang out and then repeat the same exercise.

If Georgie‘s guardian is able to practice multiple times a week and prevent him from barking by managing the distance, she should gradually be able to get him closer and closer to the window. Obviously our goal is for Georgie to see people pass the window but not bark at them.

After we finished working on the exercise to stop dogs barking at windows, we chatted a little more about dog dog interactions. I think that Georgie is uncomfortable having other dogs smell his rear end because he is insecure.  All of the things we covered in the session should help with his confidence, but his guardian could also assist him in having positive interactions with other dogs by being able to read dogs better.

I recommended the guardian pick up the book On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas. This is a very easy read that goes over how dogs can tell other dogs to calm down or indicate that they are stressed. Knowing how to read these signals will give Georgie’s guardian a heads up and allow her to move him away from other dogs before he feels the need to snap at them.

This will take a little time and practice. I recommended the guardian reach out to me if she struggles with this as this is definitely a more advanced dog behavior problem. Same thing with her work on stopping dog barking at windows.

To make sure the guardian will be able to remember everything we covered in this in-home Santa Monica dog training session, I set up my camera so that I could record a roadmap to success summary video.