Barking:

Oh boy! There is nothing more annoying than a barking dog! However, there are many reasons for a dog to bark and even over 15 different kinds of barking!

The first thing to manage is our expectations. Dogs bark, cats scratch, and fish swim. If that doesn't work for you, this may not be the pet for you. 

It's inhumane to expect a dog never to bark. However, in the same stroke, we also don't want them barking non-stop all day long!

The first thing you must do is determine which type of barking it is! If we have fear barking, we would NEVER punish or try to suppress this barking. That's your dog communicating with you ad trying to prevent a bite. Other training techniques are needed here. 

For the other types, the first and most important step is to stop the reinforcement of the barking. 

This can look like many things. The best starting point is to determine where they're barking and prevent it. For many dogs seeing and hearing things causes them to bark all day long, and it works because the person or dog moves on when they bark. So, noise buffers (which we discussed earlier) and sight blockers are needed. 

This could mean changing where the Zen Den is located during the day, blocking access to front-facing windows, or applying window decals. Window decals are my favourite because they allow my dog access to the room and light to continue coming into the space, but they cannot see what is beyond the window. 

You can get several shapes and varieties on Amazon, and you can also get some great ones from Home Depot, which only require water to stick the window (no film left behind).