Tips to Stop Your Dog from Barking at the Vacuum

By: Sam Kanouse

Published Date: February 28, 2018

Zeke - Tips to Stop Your Dog from Barking at the Vacuum

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with Zeke, a two-year-old Blue Heeler and Australian Shepherd mix, who was having issues with dog reactivity, fence fighting and need help to stop barking at the vacuum.

When a dog is dealing with reactivity you want to help them become desensitized to the sight and sound of whatever they are reacting to. In this case with Zeke, he was anxious when the vacuum would turn on so we started by having him stay as far away from the vacuum as possible so he could get used to the sounds that it made without being able to run over and attack it. Once he was comfortable we slowly brought the vacuum closer and closer to help him overcome his fear.

As you can see in the video above Zeke did very well! He was able to stop reacting to the vacuum quickly. One of the reasons for this is that I wasn’t petting him while the vacuum was coming near him. That might turn too much of his attention onto me instead of on working through this fear on his own, with me being close to him for support.

To keep up with this good behavior I want to remind the guardian to keep practicing this method over and over again. The more times you practice the better Zeke will be at being comfortable with the vacuum moving around in the home. You can also use this exact same method to help Zeke overcome his fence fighting and reactivity to dogs. We wrapped up this behavior session with Zeke’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.

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This post was written by: Sam Kanouse