Last week, a commenter named Cindy asked how to get her dog’s barking under control:

… Do you by any chance know how to get a dog to stop barking? My black lab barks at anything: people walking past the house, people walking across the street, the neighbor cat. The biggest problem is that he barks at everyone that comes to the door. He barks, growls and gets his hackles up no matter who is there (except family and then he just barks). I can’t open the door because he is charging the door and carrying on. He hasn’t bitten anyone, most of the time he just backs away when they come inside, even though he still is barking. Any ideas?

That has got to be really annoying for you and your guests! I don’t have specific answers for your situation, but I would like to point you in a direction that I have found helpful.

I have learned a lot about my dogs’ behavior by watching The Dog Whisperer, with Cesar Millan, and It’s Me Or The Dog, with Victoria Stilwell. I highly recommend checking out their websites.

Your barking dog reminds me of one of the first episodes of It’s Me Or The Dog that I saw. I don’t remember the specifics of the problem with the dogs, but I do remember that they were naughty around other people and other dogs. It seems like there was barking or excessive pulling on the leash in social settings, or both.

The first thing Victoria did was to establish who was in charge. (It wasn’t the dogs!) Later, she took one of them on a walk and had someone else walk a strange dog in the vicinity. When the dog she was handling started to bark, or in other ways freak out, she turned and walked the dog away from the strange dog. When the dog settled down, she’d try approaching the strange dog again. She did that repeatedly until that dog learned that if it wanted to be introduced to a strange dog, it had to shut its yap and behave. You might try something like that with a willing victim friend at your door.

Victoria talks a lot about speaking the dog’s language. She demonstrates time after time on her show that she does not need to resort to beating the stuffing out of a dog to bring it under control; she resorts to body language and tones of voice that the dog understands. For example, she looks a dog in the eyes and gives it a cold glare that means, “You can fight me, but I will win.” She also says that tone of voice makes a big difference and recommends using a firm lower tone of voice rather than a shrill, whiny. The tone of voice needs to convey strength of will and command attention. Whines are easily, sometimes happily, ignored. Fewer syllables is good. A firm, deep “Hush!” is better than a higher pitched, “Noah! Quit that barking! You noisy beast, shut up! Noah, hush! Be quiet or I’ll kill you, you stupid* dog!”

* Obviously I’m pulling this scenario from the deep recesses of imagination. For one thing, Noah is not stupid. For another, he doesn’t have a barking problem.

When watching Victoria in action, there is no question about who’s going to win the contest of wills.

Anyway, Cindy, it sounds like something in your actions is telling your dog that his behavior is okay or that he is the boss. I highly recommend checking Cesar’s and Victoria’s websites and watching their programs, if you can, for help in retraining yourself and your dog. Dogs bark, and that’s okay. They’re supposed to, but what you’ve described seems excessive.

To read about what works for others, visit Shannon @ Rocks in My Dryer.