Why Do Dogs Bark a Lot?

Dogs bark for a variety of reasons. They bark to greet you, they bark to warn you or protect you, they bark to direct your attention to something, like their need for food or water. Some dogs bark just because they can. Excessive barking can grow out of these regular behaviors or they can signal other problems with the dog's day-to-day life.

  1. Separation Anxiety

    • Some breeds of dogs are more prone to separation anxiety than others. Different dogs express separation anxiety in different ways, such as destruction of property, but some express it via excessive barking when the owner is not around. If a dog perceives his owner as the follower and himself as the leader of the pack, the incidents of separation anxiety can cause excessive barking.

    Rewarded Behavior

    • Owners sometimes reward dogs brought into a family or a home for protective behavior. If one of those protective behaviors is barking, and the dog is rewarded with affection or food for it, the dog can learn that barking leads to reward. From the dog's perspective, lots of barking is a good thing because it should be leading to lots of rewarding. Dogs that bark for protection can also learn from their owners that they can be rewarded for being quiet.

    Indoors versus Outdoors

    • Depending on where the dog spends most of her time, when put in a different environment, she can bark excessively as a way to let you know she wants to go back in the natural environment. If a dog spends most of the day outside, the yard or property will be the dog's natural environment and being inside can cause the dog to bark excessively. The same works in reverse for an inside dog left in a yard. It's easy to build a balance by creating a space in any environment that the dog comes to see as his own, such as a dog bed, dog house or feeding area.

    Overstimulation

    • Barking can be a perfectly natural response from a dog that humans perceive as being excessive. If a dog is in a yard where cats are climbing on a fence, squirrels run across branches of trees and the neighbors have children who run close to the dog, then the barking dog is merely responding to stimulus. Similarly, a dog left in a house with lots of action in it that does not include the dog can lead the animal to bark in response to all the stimulation.

    Protection

    • Dogs bark to alert their owners to threats. The longer the list of potential threats, the more barking the dog will do. A frequent visitor to the house can cause a dog to bark excessively if the visitor is never introduced to the dog as a non-threatening person. A dog can bark excessively at another dog or even a cat until that other animal is introduced as a non-threat.