# Help my dog keeps barking for attention



## chandings (Sep 8, 2011)

hi, 
I own a 10 months old Lab. Recently he has got into the habit of continuously barking for attention. I do not know what to do. It is definitely not an angry or threatening bark but purely for attention.

Thanks 
Chandan


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## Bordermom (Apr 28, 2010)

Stop giving him attention? 

Or change what attention he gets and when. When he's being quiet, take out a treat and go to him calmly and reward him quietly with a treat, and go back to what you were doing. So if he's snoozing on the floor behaving, reward him.

Each time he starts barking, put him outside or in a different room for a minute or two then let him out again. He'll start to figure it out that barking does NOT work for what he does want.


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## chandings (Sep 8, 2011)

Thanks Bordermom.
I want to clarify one thing, is leashing him to the wall for some time till he stops barking alright or a bad method?


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

Bad method. Don't leash to a wall. If a Lab barks for attention, you'd like to provide attention before he starts to bark 

However, if a Lab is barking for attention, and you are already there, then say something like Quiet (to mark the behavior that you want), and turn your back for a few seconds. Sometimes, you can even just look down or away... withdrawing attention. And when the dog is quiet for even a moment, praise and treat... or praise and pet, giving attention.


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## chandings (Sep 8, 2011)

thanks hankismon,

Even I thought so. I was leashing him for small times like 15 to 30 mins. but frankly i was not very keen. I have started ignoring him n shutting my door. It worked. He is basically pissed that i seem to be paying more attention to my pc than him. So now i am careful to talk to him even while i am working.


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

My dog doesn't like it when i work on the computer, either


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## Zoopie (Feb 22, 2010)

My dog constantly does this. It gets tricky because I need to work at home a lot, on the computer, during the weekends. I probably have the worse solution ever: Before I settle at the computer to work, I give him a long walk. And as soon as he starts barking, I walk him again.

My weekend days pretty much consists of 2 hours walk, 2 hours work, 1 hour walk, 2 hour work, 1 hour walk, 1 hour work!

.


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## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

When that happens with my dog I turn away from him. If he barks again, I walk a couple of steps away from him. I repeat that a couple of times and then I will leave the room and wait for 5-10 seconds of quiet from him and then re-enter the room. If he remains quiet I will then give him attention. He has just about completely stopped the attention barking. The last couple of times he did it he was telling me he had to go outside - but that was a good thing.


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## Sendiulino (Jun 20, 2011)

Sam is 5 months and after a trip to the dog park has "found her voice" and has started barking at things. Typically she has a reason for barking which isn't nearly as bad.. if her ball gets stuck under the chair and no one is watching, she'll bark. I can tolerate this. I don't mind if she barks for a reason actually. I can clearly see she's looking under the sofa and barking and then looking over to me.. so I get the ball and she's happy.

But she's started barking at our dinner, and that's a problem. Essentially she wants it but can't have it, so she sits on the floor and starts barking.

We tried ignoring her or putting her aside: Trust me, this does _not _work for Samantha. So what I decided to do instead was _challenge_ the dog. She's essentially challenging us -- demanding something from us that she wants that we're not currently offering to her. That, for me, is a challenge. So I've started to challenge her back.. if she barks, we take a strong move toward her (usually we're sitting so we just lunge the upper body toward her) and give her a firm "QUIET!". Usually, she gets it on the first go.. sometimes it takes two times. But one way or the other, this settles her for a good long time. She doesn't run, but rather sits nicely and sort of watches us, and stays very very quiet.

She gets a treat for being quiet for longish periods of time.

Barking at dinners has become less and less, so this is working wonders for us. It is not, however, a technique most people will "condone" around here  But sometimes different dogs need different handling.


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## synrgy501 (Sep 19, 2011)

I would start by offering a reward when he is quiet for a short period of time. As soon as he starts barking ignore him until he is quiet for 10 seconds (no matter how long he barks). Once he figures of the 10 second rule up the time. Ultimately you will have a quiet dog, although if he is anything like my dogs he may find another way to get attention.


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