Why does my dog bark so much when excited?

Dogs that bark while they are playing or because they have become over excited, can learn how to calm themselves down with time. Yelling at a dog that is barking because he is over excited will not work, the dog just thinks you are barking back.

At my house we often have barking parties, where the dogs are allowed to bark as loud as they want and we all bark together. We then have silence until someone comes to the door.

The best way to deal with excitement barking is to teach the dog some self control and give him many and frequent breaks. When your dog gets over excited and starts barking, it’s too late, you need to move him to a quiet area and let him calm down before you try again. Watch your dog and notice the signs before he starts barking. That’s when you want to interrupt him and ask him to do something else.

With any barking problem, always expect it to get worse before it gets better.

A great way to teach a dog self control is to teach him ‘go to mat.’ I will talk about that and other ways to teach self control in a future blog post.

Laura Azevedo CPDT-KA