Demand Barking in Dogs (and What to Do About It)
When dogs demand bark, it can be frustrating--but it's easy to solve with reward-based methods if you know what to do.
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Watch episode 43 of The Pawsitive Post in Conversation on Youtube or below, listen wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify), or scroll down to read a transcript of the highlights.
Demand barking in dogs (and what to do about it)
Demand barking is a type of barking that dogs do to get something they want, like a treat, toy, or attention. It happens because we've previously (accidentally) rewarded them for it. So what should you do if your dog is demand barking?
In this episode, we talk about:
- How dogs bark for different reasons, including watchdog barking and barking due to fear
- What demand barking is
- Why the phrase "demand barking" is actually a bit of a misnomer
- We give examples of demand barking, including when Zazie's dog Pepper does this
- We share ideas and tips for what to do about it
- Kristi talks about why she set up a course on this and what's included
- And finally we talk about the books we're reading.
The books we recommend in this episode are:
- Spoiler Alert: You're Gonna Die by Korttany Finn and Jacquie Purcell
- Junie: A Novel by Chelene Knight
The books are available from all good bookstores and my Amazon store.
Also mentioned in this episode:
Highlights of the conversation about demand barking in dogs
Z: I think barking is a really useful topic for us to be talking about, but I think it's also really important to start by explaining what we mean by demand barking, or maybe even starting with some of the other types of barking, because dogs bark for a range of different reason.
And if you're having issues with your dog barking, it really helps to know why they're barking. So, for example, we can get dogs barking because they're afraid of something. And in that case, we need to do something either to stop the dog from having to face the thing that they're afraid of, or to stop them from being afraid of it altogether, or ideally, combine both of those together.
And also we get dogs who watch dog bark, so they're dogs that are just saying, hey, there's someone coming to the door, for example. And that is, again, that's something quite different from fear barking. And so it really helps to know what kind of barking the dog is doing, doesn't it?
K: It really does, yeah. And I agree, dogs bark, like you said, for many reasons. It's kind of one of their main communication tools, you know, and we're lucky to have it.
Even though it may feel like a giant headache, we're lucky that they're so ready to communicate that way. But we do have to sort of sit back when we first hear the dog barking or barking has become a problem enough that you're listening to podcasts or seeking a trainer, figuring out why is the dog barking in the first place.
How are we gonna lump it into a big category? Because if your dog is scared, we don't want to be ignoring that. We want our dog to stop being scared. That's, you know, directive number one.
Z: Yeah. And we've got a separate episode which is all about fear and anxiety in dogs and the things that everyone needs to know if their dog is actually reactive or fearful. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes.
And today we are just talking about demand barking, which in a way we can say is the dog barking because they want something. I mean, that's kind of what the name of it means, isn't it?
K: Yeah. So what demand barking is, how it usually evolves is dogs will try out different behaviors to get what they want, just like all of us. Like, we try out going to work to get money to feed ourselves, you know?
So we will try, if we come across a door, we'll try pushing, we'll try pulling because we want to get through the door. So dogs will try various things.
Say if your dog wants to be patted or if your dog, surprise of all surprises, wants to eat more, they'll try different things. They might try pawing, they might try nosing you, they might try sitting cutely if you're lucky. You know, all of these things. And sometimes dogs try barking when they want something.
The typical scenarios I think that dog trainers hear about a lot are dogs want food, dogs want patting, dogs want door opening services. So the dog tries barking. And because barking is annoying to us people, we respond. We're like, oh, please stop barking. I'm just going to pet you till you shut up.
Or you're barking. It's giving me a headache. I'm going to open that door to let you out. Right. So the dog tries something on and it works.
And dogs being smart mammals, make that connection. Sometimes they make it right away. Sometimes, you know, might take a few trials. They make that connection and they learn, oh, the labor of barking earned me the paycheck of what I wanted.
Z: Yeah. So the dog is not upset at all in these cases and they are getting what they want. And what's more, we probably have been rewarding them for this barking accidentally for quite a while before it gets to the point where we think, oh no, that barking is so annoying, I have to do something about it.
So we have that history of reinforcing the behavior, which means it's already quite a strong behavior, basically.
And anything that we've already reinforced for a long time, it can sometimes take a little bit of time to sort that out. But I think maybe the phrase demand barking is a bit of a misnomer, would you say?
K: I admit I use it and, you know, we're going to talk about this later. I have a course to help humans who have demand barking dogs. And I use it freely in the course and I think it's just something that's become part of our language.
But I think as dog guardians, I think it's worth us taking a step back and going, demand barking. You know, like, is that really it?
So we've taught our dog, our dog tried something on and we've taught them that it works. So to them, this is labor that they're doing to earn a paycheck that, that they want in the world.
So calling it demand barking, it sort of implies something moral that the dog is demanding something that they don't deserve. Whereas in fact they deserve what they earned because they earned it right in their mind and in how we've been training them.
So I think, you know, sometimes people use other phrases to try and capture the fact that they're requesting. They call it request barking.
And that to me, also kind of gets on my nerves a tiny bit because like, like I go to work and I put in labor and then I get a paycheck. Is that demand working? Is that request working? No, I'm working. I'm doing labor for a reward, a life consequence of getting the money that I need to survive to pay my bills.
So sometimes people call it operant barking, which is a really technical term, so there's no good way of saying it, but I think it's worth taking a step back and going, okay, we do call it demand barking, but our dogs aren't being demanding.
They're doing what we've trained them to do, number one. And they're also just putting labor into the world so that they can find things that they enjoy.
Z: I think that's a really useful distinction because it's helpful for us to have a word to describe it and demand barking or request barking, it makes sense to the human. So it helps us to understand what it is. It helps us to distinguish it from watchdog barking or barking because the dog is afraid. And that's an important distinction to make.
But at the same time, of course, we have to see it from the dog's perspective. And actually here is a behavior that we have been reinforcing them for. We have basically taught them to do it, even if we haven't noticed that we've been teaching them to do this.
And I think some of the things dogs do that we find annoying, quite a few of them actually are things that we have accidentally taught them to do and we didn't realize that we were teaching them to do this. I mean, there are some fairly common situations in which this occurs. What kind of situation do you tend to see it in?
K: Well, I think the two big ones that I said are around food time and then door opening services, Patting too, I think quite a few times.
Some dogs want a lot of physical affection. And if barking is how they get it, barking is, you know, how they'll teach themselves to get it.
Soleil, one of our dogs right now, will bark for you to throw something, to throw the ball, even if it's still sort of in her mouth or if it's in her possession and she won't let you take it.
So I think anything, if you think of what's fun that a dog likes that they can't get for themselves, you know, some dogs will demand bark for that, for sure.
Z: Yeah, yeah. And Pepper my Shih Tzu, he does demand bark occasionally. And I actually, to be honest, though, I don't find it annoying. I find it really cute because he's quite cute anyway, and he doesn't do it very often.
If it became very common, probably I would think it was a bit much. And he's a little dog, so he has actually a very shrill bark. It's really ear piercing when he barks.
But every evening when my husband prepares his own snack, he prepares a little extra snack with a bit for the dog and a bit for the cat.
So Pepper knows that he's going to get his treats. He sees the snack being prepared and he knows that it gets prepared in advance. So he knows that a little bit later on, my husband is gonna go through to the other room, he's gonna take the dog with him, the cat will come running, and they both are going to get some treats.
So he gets quite excited. He's got a good internal clock. He's seen the treats being prepared and he knows roughly what time it's due.
But, you know, it's not exactly the same time every day. So if it gets delayed a little bit, first he gets really excited and he's kind of panting with excitement because he knows it's going to happen.
And then there comes a point where he's like, okay, this has gone on long enough. And he barks because he wants his treat. And I don't know, I just find it really cute, actually. Not annoying at all.
But he's barking to say, it's time for my treat. Now where's my treat? I want my treat, which normally comes at that time. And I just think it's really, really cute actually.
But anyway, so most people don't find it cute.
K: But you're allowed to audience. If you have a demand barking dog and you think it's cute, it's fine. And if you call yourself a dog trainer because you train your dog to do it.
Z: Yes. And if you do, let us know. You can actually send us a text message and let us know because we would love to hear about that. But most people actually do want to do something about this, don't they?And you've got this wonderful course about it. So I'm going to ask you to share some of the ideas that you've put into the course of things that people can do or should do if their dog is barking because they want something and we've accidentally trained them to do it.
K: Right. Yeah. So I think first up is to assess why, you know, and this isn't the case for every dog, but some dogs have an endless pool of want. For example, like the Labrador and food comes to mind. And we can't just give our dogs endless food. Right?
But I think it's useful in a lot of cases to step back and go, okay, our dog is wanting. And can we give our dogs more of what they want? Is there a way to make our dogs less sort of needy and less wanty? So I think providing a lot more enrichment for our dogs, more exercise.
So I think it's worthwhile to sort of say, can we give our dogs more of what they like so that they're not being put into a position of sort of requesting us, demanding that we do things for them.
And this is something I do go over in the course and I think, more walks, more enrichment. There's ways for us to fit giving our dogs more of what they like into our lives in a way that doesn't burden us as much as we expect.
So that's really always the first thing that I go to in these cases. That said, I think we can all try and give our dogs more. I don't think any of us are exempt from that. But that said, there are still going to be dogs who exhibit this kind of behavior and we need to train for it.
And training is enriching. It is enriching. So it's not, you know, contrary. Again, we're not being coercive. We're not doing anything terrible for our dogs. But I think there's definitely scenarios and there's definitely dogs that. It doesn't matter how much enrichment this dog gets, they're still going to demand bark. And it's still something that we need to train for, for our own joy.
And our joy matters too. So I think a useful way to think about it is, okay, our dog is using a behavior to ask for something. Can I get the dog to use a different behavior to ask for it?
So you know, is this something that I'm going to give the dog anyways, if it's door opening services? If you let your dog in and out whenever they want anyway, can the dog learn something new? A different way of asking to be let in or out or honestly, get a dog door if you can, because that will make your life so much better.
So say if your dog wants patting and you're happy to pat your dog, but you don't want it to bark, I'd say get your dog to do a different behavior. So if your dog already has a suite of behaviors that they will do on cue, then simply switch the channel.
And if, when your dog approaches you and instead of barking, ask your dog to sit or jump up on the couch or do something else and then you pat the dog, you can sort of preempt it by saying, you know, here's a new key to unlock what you want, right?
If it's something that your dog is not going to get, if your dog is that Labrador asking for more food when they've already eaten, then I think it's useful to do something.
You sort of have two choices. You can train your dog to do something else. Another example is laying down. Lots of dogs don't bark as readily when they're laying down. Or they don't bark as readily if they have something in their mouth.
So turn it into time for a game. Cue your dog to go get their ball and then play a little bit of ball with them or cue them to lay down. And then, you know, they can lay down for a while and then either get a pat or maybe a ball throw or something.
Z: Yeah. I think there are lots of options, and it's really nice to know how many options there are. But also I love how dog focused this is. So it's really thinking about the dog's welfare and what's good for the dog's welfare and sometime they can have more of that thing.
And I think, you know, no one is deliberately depriving their dog of play or food and things like that. But some dogs, they really can benefit from a lot more enrichment and most people love it actually when they start providing more enrichment for their, for their dog or doing more training.
It's nice for us, because who doesn't love to see a happy dog? So I think that's a really important consideration that you mentioned.
K: It is, yeah. And I think, I think taking it away from viewing it as the lens of how can our dogs annoy us less and viewing it more of how can we either work with their dogs in partnership or how can we make our dogs lives better so that this problem kind of isn't as prevalent is useful.
But there is also going to be cases where you can't give the dog what they want and you know, they can't have more food, they can't go outside because it's not safe or what, you don't have a yard, what have you or you can't pet your dog 24 hours a day.
And then I'm perfectly fine using negative punishment in those cases. So using a timeout to say dog, hey, you know what, you can do anything you want right now except for barking. You know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to make you lay down for 10 minutes. I'm not going to, et cetera. I'm just going to say if you bark at me right now, you'll go in timeout for 30 seconds.
And I don't feel like it should be considered like the be all and end all terrible end point. I think it's a useful training tool to help remove the one particular annoying behavior while still letting the dog have free choice about what else they're doing. And that's covered in the course too.
Z: And I think it's important to mention that that still is a reward based method and from a scientific perspective that still counts as a reward based method. And it would be ridiculous if you couldn't say, okay, my dog is barking nonstop. I want to turn my back on them just for a matter of seconds, you know, to make, make a difference or to show that you're not enjoying it.
And unfortunately sometimes when people mention these things they think, oh, you're going to be really mean and you're going to shut them in a room and leave them there for several hours. And that's not it at all.
So this is, it's a really effective way of dealing with the behavior. And we're also working within an environment where we're thinking about what the dog needs, what the dog wants, what the dog can and can't safely or safely have or have from our perspective and point of view as well.
So you talked about different behaviors that people might decide to use. Can you give me some examples of different behaviors? Because I think like I wouldn't actually enjoy being barked at because the dog wants petting, but I love it when a dog comes and leans on me because they want petting.
So I think that would be really cute. And a lot of people like to teach their dog to sit, to be petted or even just to sit, to request anything.
And I think for a dog to have a way of asking for things that they need, that's a really useful skill for a dog, isn't it?
K: For sure. Yeah. I agree.
I think sit is a super easy one. It's easy for a lot of people to train either with luring, or some dogs sit all the time so you can capture it.
I think some dogs will still bark when they're sitting, so it might not work. You have to be looking for a behavior that your dog will do and not bark at the same time for when you're considering their behavioral repertoire.
Some people love training a hand target. It's very easy. Some people don't like dogs bopping their hands all the time. So it's sort of really up to you and how you want to be interacting with your dog.
If your dog likes doing something, then put it on cue. It's, you know, why not?
Yeah, I think a down stay is one of the go tos because it's also relatively easy to train. We've got really good training plans for it. It's easy for most dogs if they don't have mobility stuff going on. And it parks the dog in one spot for at least a little bit of time.
And like I said before, most dogs won't necessarily bark when they're in a down stay for whatever reason. So I use down stay, I use sit.
But I think if, if you like your dog, you know, like pawing you or like you said, laying close to you or jumping up beside you or spinning or what, you know, all of these. It seems to me if you've already trained your dog to do something, getting your dog to use that as a request behavior makes a ton of sense because it's less labor. And if you're already annoyed at your barking dog, less labor seems good.
If you like training or if you're ready to train. Honestly, a down stay is I think, kind of the nicest and easiest. Or a sit stay or, you know, those are ones that seem sort of easy to me.
Z: Yeah, I think so. I think a down stay is a really good one to know about. And dog sitting, they might still be barking. It depends on the dog.
K: That's DOD. Depending on dog.
Z: Yeah, it depends on the dog. But also I think it becomes really cute when you have a dog who knows, like, you see them and they're sitting or they're lying down and you can see from their body language and their expression, it's like they want something, I think that's really cute.
K: Yeah. They get all hopeful.
Z: Yeah. And then it's our job to think, okay, what do they want? Because they might be wanting different things at different times, but it's up to us to work out what it is and give it for them.
K: Yeah. So if you really like training or if you have a really bright dog, you can use, you know, like speech boards or you can look at how the dog is interacting with their own environment. So learn their language. Like, if your dog looks at the door or goes to the door and then comes and sits at you, then, you know, they're showing you with their behavior.
Archer will come up and sort of go past and then back up. Boop, boop. To be patted in a certain spot. He knows he wants to be itched somewhere, so he'll position himself hopefully in an area where I can reach my hand out and scratch it.
So I think watching our dogs and learning from what they're saying is useful.
Z: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
K: We use, like Soleil is quite a demand barker, an operant barker. And so we use a down stay with feeding time because we do feed our dogs altogether. I mean, we've the livestock guardian dogs.
We have fed them separately when we had sled dogs, but the sled dogs were always quite comfortable being fed loose. So we would feed them all together. And Soleil was the only barker, really, of that group.
So we would have her do a down stay, and then she would also be given a little bit of a. You know, last time we talked about guarding, and she would be a little bit of a guarder.
So we use a down stay for that. And then also she demand barks outside to have the ball thrown, particularly if we have guests over. So in that, we use negative punishment. And, you know, she's very bright. It took, like, two timeouts, and now we just give the warning cue occasionally, and she'll be like, oh, okay, now's not the time for barking. I'll go find my own stick.
So she doesn't have to, like, do something for us in that moment. She's free to go do what she wants in the environment.
Z: Yeah. I think that's really, really nice as well.
K: And, of course, I guess it's more often when people are there.
Z: Is it more exciting for her to play fetch when there's other people there? Do you think that's why?
K: Yeah. That's a question. I don't know. Maybe. I suspect it probably has to do with reinforcement history more than, you know, she gets thrown stuff thrown for her a lot. But maybe when people are around, if she barks a couple times more, we're more likely to throw something to shut her up because we're like, oh, we're talking, you know, so it might be sort of like a. An antecedent thing.
Yeah. I don't know.
Z: So demand marking is happening because basically, we've trained the dogs to do it, and so we're now no longer rewarding them for doing that, but rewarding them for some other behavior instead that we would like them to do. I think that's the general principle, really.
K: Yeah. And I think the other piece of sort of advice or conversation that I think it would be useful to have about demand barking is extinction. So I believe a piece of advice that you might hear is ignore it, and it will go away.
And if your dog has only tried demand barking on once or twice, then that might work. So essentially, just stop reinforcing the behavior.
But if your dog has a long reinforcement history, like if it's an adult dog that came to you as an adult and has this sort of ingrained behavior, or if you've realized through sort of looking into it that you've been rewarding the dog for a long time then what will almost certainly happen is a behavioral process called extinction where the dog will try even harder. And I think it's unpleasant for the human, but I also think it's veering into unpleasant territory for the dog.
The rules have changed and there's no new rule in place. So they're just like, what? This used to get me patting, this used to get me door opening services. I'm going to do it harder and louder.
And you see dogs getting a little bit, in my opinion, they can get a little bit upset. This used to work and it's not anymore. What's going on?
So I think in cases where your dog goes into that extinction process where they try louder and harder, pawing harder if they were pawing you, barking longer and louder if they were barking, I don't think that's pleasant for the dog.
So instead of going right to extinction or extinguishment of a behavior that was previously reinforced, I think it's kinder to train them to do something else if you're going to give them that thing or use one of the other techniques that we talked about if you're not.
Yeah, so. So give them a new rule. Don't just let the old rule diffuse. If the dog is doing this thing where you know, well, I tried to stop patting but then he just got more and more and more barky and it's very predictable that dogs will try this.
It's a well understood behavioral phenomenon. So I would say don't, don't let extinction be your go to if your dog is getting to that point.
Z: Yeah, I agree. I think that's another one of those common misconceptions. And also for the person doing it, I'm going to throw in a technical term. So you talked about the dog barking more and more because it's no longer working and they're trying to make it work and we call that an extinction burst.
And I think people can find that really frustrating. And also people will often give up at that point. So it's really much better to think about what would I like the dog to do instead and how can I train them to do that instead of this behaviour, as well as making sure that they're within reason getting the thing that they want or more of the thing that they would like to have.
So you have a course about this. If people want to know more about the course and learn about it, where do they go?
K: So you can go to my website. I have all of my online courses on my website.
And the course is called Peace and Quiet. A New Normal for Demand Barking. There we go.
For the people listening on the pod. I put that in air quotes. A New Normal for Demand Barking Dogs.
So that's up at my website and you can read about the course and sign up for it right at my website.
Z: And that's kristibenson.com.
K: Yes, kristibenson.com
Z: And we'll put that link in the show notes and. Awesome. So thank you for telling us about that.
And if your dog is a demand barker, I hope this has helped you and do write in and let us know or send us a text message and tell us what your dog demand barks for because it would be really fun to know.
K: I forgot to say this earlier, but there's CEUs available for the course both through CCBT, CCBDT and PPG.
Z: Perfect.
This conversation has been lightly edited for content and style.
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