Why Puppies Bark and How to Stop it!

Barking is a normal form of communication for dogs. But sometimes it can become excessive and difficult to live with! If you’re experiencing this, then you’ve landed on the right blog. We’ll cover the reasons why puppies bark at what can seem like everything, plus techniques you can use at home to help control excessive barking!

The Puppy Academy student: Lennon!

From territorial, alerting, greeting, and reacting to people, other dogs and objects, a pups’ bark has many reasons behind it. There is no way to “stop” a puppy or dog from barking for good, but the goal of this blog is to teach you what different triggers are causing your pup to start their barking so you can prevent it, manage it, and stop it from becoming excessive.

READY TO UNLEASH THE BEST IN YOUR PUP? SET UP A FREE CONSULTATION FOR THE PUPPY ACADEMY TRAINING SCHOOL IN HERMOSA BEACH, CA - HERE!

Why Puppies Bark

As we briefly touched on, puppies and dogs alike have a variety of reasons behind why they bark. Here are the most common instances:

1. Protecting Territory: Some pups bark to protect their territory when other people and dogs outside of their immediate family encroach their area.

2. Alarm Barking: Alarm barking happens in response to something like a strange noise that catches your pup’s attention.

3. Attention: Other barking triggers include trying to gain your attention for playtime, food, treats, or just some of your affection!

4. Excitement: Some puppies are triggered by excitement usually when it comes to greeting new people and other dogs but this is usually friendly and accompanied by a wagging tail and overall relaxed body language. 

5. Boredom & Frustration: If your puppy isn’t getting enough activity to stimulate their mind and keep them physically active throughout the day, the effect can be more barking.

6. Separation Anxiety: Pups who aren't accustomed to being away out of sight from your, away from you, or alone when you leave the house could be barking due to separation anxiety.

Whatever the cause, there is always something behind your pup’s barking. Before letting yourself become frustrated with your pup’s next barking bout, take a moment to observe them and ask these questions: Are they seeing or hearing something unusual? Did someone stop by? Are you about to leave? What’s different about this situation? Once you narrow in on what the cause could be, you can determine the correct response and take the proper next steps to mitigate their barking!

How to Stop Your Puppy’s Barking

Depending on the cause of your puppy’s barking, these are a few super easy and effective strategies that you can try out! 

• Introduce Sight Barriers at Home

Many pups will often bark at something that drew their attention outside your window or glass door. Other times, if they are outside, they could bark at a person or another dog on the other side of the fence. In these cases, your pup may be exhibiting territorial and alarm barking at what they are seeing. 

Utilizing sight barriers such as a privacy fence, opaque removable plastic window film, or simply closing the blinds and curtains can all help eliminate the barking triggers and help your puppy achieve a calmer state of mind! 

• Create a Safe Space for Your Puppy at Home

Does your puppy start barking at you whenever you’re in another room or about to leave them alone? Have your neighbors complained of barking while you're away? This barking behavior can be related to separation anxiety and can be helped by making your puppy feel more comfortable and confident in a safe space of their own! 

Set up either a dog crate, playpen, or room where you can block out sights and sounds from the outside. Cover their crate with blankets or towels, draw down the blinds and curtains, plus you can use white noise like a fan or TV, for example, to help eliminate noises from the outside and make them feel more secure on their own.

If you haven’t crate trained your puppy, or are unsure of the benefits related to crate training, take a moment to read our crate training blog! for more details!

• Provide Your Puppy with Enough Activity

If there’s nothing happening in their environment and your puppy seems to start barking out of nowhere, chances are they could be frustrated or simply bored! In this situation, you can provide them with an activity to keep their brain engaged and help relieve them of that extra energy! 

If you want to provide your puppy with exercise, check out our blog “Canine Fitness Awareness: How to Keep Your Puppy Healthy & Active as They Grow!” for more routines!

Chew toys are also a great way to keep your puppy engaged in doing something other than barking. A Kong toy that you can stuff with their favorite food or a treat like peanut butter, will keep your puppy working to get to their reward! But if you plan to give your puppy a chew toy, make sure that you are able to supervise them while they are playing with these toys. As your puppy chews, smaller pieces can break off and they could potentially ingest them. For more fun activities to do at home with your puppy, click here for our Top 10 favs!

• Stop Rewarding Their Barking

Has your pup mastered the ability to call you on command? Chances are, when your puppy barks, you come running and give them attention. By doing this, you are actually rewarding their barking behavior!

Instead, if your puppy is demand barking, give them a firm "No" and redirect them to another activity (like practicing a couple of commands or going to “Place” instead) and reward them when they follow through and listen.

Try to reward your puppy with their favorite toy or treat when they become quiet instead. If they continue barking at you, don’t engage and instead try to ignore them or even leave the room until they become quiet. Once they are quiet again, even if it’s just a few seconds pause, only then do you give them attention as a reward. This switch will help your puppy create the association that not barking can lead to them getting something they want! 

• Enlist the Help of Others

If your puppy barks every time the neighbor walks past or the mail carrier drops off a delivery, you can help curb your puppy’s barking by teaching them that these occurrences are okay! 

To do this, you could enlist the help of your neighbor, for example, to offer your pup a treat when they arrive and once your pup is quiet! Doing this can teach your puppy that these instances aren’t scary after all and create a positive association with them!

Puppy Training is Key to Help Manage Barking

Having good structure in place at home by following a daily puppy schedule, plus teaching your pup a few specific training techniques can make managing your pup's barking so much easier, and save you from serious frustration!

Try these activities below out at home, or if you’re ready to end your pup’s barking fits for good, sign up for our Online Puppy School to unlock all our trainers bark-busting secrets now!

• Recall or Come: Getting your puppy to come to you when called is a great way to redirect their attention from what they’re barking at, and back to you instead. Say, for example, your puppy is barking at something they saw at the door or on the other side of the fence, calling them to you will remove them from what is triggering their barking. TIP: Having a high-value treat or toy they love, will help you grab their focus more easily!

For help with your puppy’s Recall, check out our blog “Puppy Training 101: How to Get Your Puppy Responding to Come!”

• Sit and Stay: If your puppy starts to run up and bark at the door or bark at another dog while walking on the leash, work on some training routines with your puppy using commands they are already good at, like Sit and Stay to keep them engaged and working with you, rather than on what is causing them to bark!

For help teaching your puppy these commands, check out our blog “Puppy Training 101: Starting Your Puppy off with the Basics!

• Place: Getting your puppy to go to their “Place” where they can settle down is also effective at controlling their barking. This should be the spot at home like a cot or dog bed where they go to sit or lay down, so sending them to their place is basically like sending your pup to their chill-out zone!

For help teaching your puppy Place command, check out our blog “Puppy Training 101: How to Teach Your Puppy Confidence for the Real World!”

Get your puppy to stop barking at you, at other dogs, for attention, and through the puppy barking phase altogether with The Puppy Academy Online School! Sign up here:

Have a specific question about your puppy’s barking? Ask our trainers every Wednesday at 1pm PT on our Instagram @thepuppyacademy during our Ask A Puppy Trainer Show! All replays are posted afterward, and you can catch up on our last ones on our YouTube channel!

Want our latest puppy tips? Sign up here for the VIP (Very Important Puppy) list where we send weekly puppy training advice for issues you’re dealing with direct to your inbox!

Check out these blogs related to puppy training and more!

Canine Fitness Awareness: How to Keep Your Puppy Active & Healthy as They Grow!
How to Introduce Your New Puppy to Your Dog!
Create a Daily Puppy Schedule!

10 Fun Things to do at Home with Your Puppy!

If your puppy doesn’t have all their vaccinations yet, or if you can’t get outside for a walk because of the weather, you need some other creative ways to keep your puppy satisfied both physically and mentally! Luckily, there are plenty of fun activities and super easy games you can do right at home. We’re sharing our Top 10 favorites here!

The Puppy Academy student, Romeo!

Before we dive in, is your puppy on a schedule? Maintaining a daily schedule for your puppy at home will help your pup get into the flow of knowing what’s coming up next in their day — which will help them settle into their new home more quickly, and make puppyhood easier for you faster! Get our recommended puppy schedule here that you can use as a template, and draw from our list below to fill in the daytime actives you’d like to try!

Having productive activities at your disposal will decrease the chance of your puppy becoming restless during their free time and looking elsewhere to occupy their time (ie. chewing your baseboards, scratching your throw pillows, digging in the backyard, etc.). Plus, they’ll give you the opportunity to teach your puppy some good manners, great puppy training skills and promote positive behavior while you’re at it!

1. Sniff Out The Treat!

This is a fun one to watch your pup work to find their treats (or kibble) and it’s super simple to set up in any type of living situation: all you need are a few small pieces of food (treats or kibble), a treat-stuffing toy like a Kong, some creative hiding spots, and your phone to record your pup seeking them out! With your puppy watching you from their playpen or crate, put one to two treats into a Kong, hide it, and release your pup to let them go to town searching out their reward!

2. Puzzle Games, Snuffle Mats, and Food-Dispensing Toys

These games are great at getting your puppy to work on their problem-solving skills and rewarding them for their hard work! Many of these games involve hiding a treat in a little compartment and letting your puppy sniff them out. Depending on the puzzle game you pick, your puppy will be able to flip lids, turn knobs, open small drawers, lift up cones, and sift through pieces of fabric to uncover hidden treats. And they come in different difficulty levels so you can keep progression your pup as they get better and better!

The classic Kong toy and other variations of food dispensing toys are a great mental stimulation that will release an immediate reward for your puppy’s work. Stuff it with their favorite food or treats and let them chew it until the food is dispensed. The best part about these toys is that they allow your puppy to problem-solve as they chew. This is a natural way your puppy relieves gum pain, especially if they are teething, and relieves boredom! To increase the difficulty, freeze some healthy dog-friendly peanut butter in the Kong for your pup to lick out. Bonus: licking can be very soothing for pups!

3. Practice Obedience Training

Puppies love to work and learn new things! Doing 5-15 minute sessions of obedience routines will improve your pup’s skills, teach them good manners, and even tire them out faster than a long walk! Obedience training is awesome mental exercise that will leave your pup feeling satisfied and ready for a nap when you’re finished.

This also goes for working on Heel indoors! Teaching your pup to walk inside first is much easier since there’s fewer distractions. And if your pup is already walking outdoors, you can challenge them inside as well! Use a hallway in your home to practice your pup keeping in Heel position and doing Heel turnarounds to change direction, then advance to having them Heel beside you around your coffee table, sofa, dining table, up and down the stairs, and all around the house!

For our favorite obedience command routines and how to teach your puppy to Heel with the exercises we mentioned above, our Online Puppy School goes over all these activities you can do right at home with your puppy! Check out The Puppy Academy Online School for more details and to start working on these routines today!

4. Teach Your Pup “Go Find”

With your puppy watching from their playpen or crate, have them see you take one of their favorite toys and put it down at a distance. Then, excitedly tell your puppy to “Go Find”! Act like it’s a game of Fetch and reset your puppy in their playpen or crate once they retrieve it. Do this a few times until your pup starts to associate “Go Find” with searching out their toy. Eventually, you can train them to do this with a variety of items! 

5. Teach Your Puppy Toy Names

We love this one! Your pup can learn so much, so why not the names of their favorite toys? Start by playing with one specific toy such as a ball and when your puppy takes it, say “Ball” out loud. Do this a few times and then test your pup’s skill to see if they pick up the ball when you call out “Go Find Ball!”

6. Reinforce Your Puppy’s Recall

Recall a.k.a. “Come” command is a super important behavior that you want your pup to learn early on in a variety of environments and distances. The first and best place to start is your home! You can do this by starting off in a hallway, and calling your puppy’s name and “Come”, then rewarding them with a treat when they do. Build up to be able to go into different rooms as you call them to you. For more of our tips on how do this, check out our blog on How To Get Your Puppy Responding to Come!

Take this up a notch and play what we call the “Recall Game” by involving the family and having them stand in various spots of the room while you take turns calling your pup to you and rewarding them when they “Come”! As your puppy masters farther distances, you can start including more rooms, then move it to the backyard and have them practice coming back to you. Check out are video below for more details on how to play:

7. Play a Game of Fetch or Catch

Believe it or not, you don’t need a ton of space to play Fetch with your puppy. Yes, as they get bigger and older and better with it, you will probably want to expand the distance, but for the meantime while they’re learning and still growing, smaller spaces can do just fine! We even encourage using a leash to start with to help guide your pup back and prevent them from wandering off, while they’re learning the muscle memory of Fetch.

Start off by having your puppy Sit. Then, throw their ball or toy as you say “Fetch”, and have your puppy run to catch it! Then, call them back by using their name and “Come”. Not only is this game great for their physical exercise, but you are also working on challenging command combinations and recall. For more of our Fetch-teaching tips, check out “Puppyhood Made Easy for New Owners: How to Play with Your Puppy Pt. 2!”

8.Play a Game of Tug

Tug is a great exercise that teaches your pup how to turn play “on” and “off” while also strengthening your bond together. With Tug also comes teaching your puppy the important command “Drop-it!”.

We’ve got our full guide for you on how to teach Tug and Drop-It, here!

9. Work on Impulse Control

If good manners is your goal, this one’s really going to help you, while challenging your pup too!

Feeding time and going in and out of doorways (especially outside!) can be some of the two most exciting times for puppies. While at home, take this time to up those excellent manners in your puppy and work on their impulse control around the things that excite them most.

If your puppy goes crazy for their food, practice putting them in “Place” (learn about how to teach your puppy Place command here!) and waiting while you prepare their meal. Then have them remain in a Sit or Down as you slowly lower them to the floor. If they move towards the bowl, lift it back up and reset them in their position and try again. This can take some time over several days to get the hang of, so be patient! Use your pup’s leash or have them go in their crate to help you practice this in the beginning stages while they’re learning. When you’re able to get the bowl on the ground without them going for it, calmly tell the “Break” to release them to eat their food.

If your puppy is known for bolting out of doorways to go explore, teach them calm thresholds where they learn to pause in doorways and wait for permission from you to enter or leave. Each time you go through a doorway (this includes your pup’s crate!) have them Sit and wait for your command, then calmly release them. If you are walking alongside your pup, make sure to lead them first and have them follow, or walk out together to instill this good leadership habit. Get all the details on threshold training in our blog: Teach Your Puppy Not to Bolt Out of Doorways!

10. Netflix, Chill, and “Place”

After a long day of activities, a little relaxation time is great for our pups — and us! This is also one of our favorite times to practice teaching your pup “Place duration” where your pup learns how to stay and relax on their Place cot (or dog bed) for extended periods of time.

When you start off practicing this, make sure to have your pup’s leash on with the end in your hand, and be alert to your pup so you can reward them for staying on with a treat, and guide them back to it if they try to get up. You’ll also want to sit closer to them in the beginning, then extend the distance between you as they get better at staying and need fewer resets from you. This is the perfect activity you can do while you catch up on the newest episodes of your favorite shows!

Looking for something to watch? Take our FREE Masterclass on the 5 Hacks to Make Life Easier with your New Pup. It’s only 15 minutes and will save you hours of trying other methods that just don’t work! Get it here!

With all these fun activities while you’re home with your pup, don’t forget to also include some alone time for them. Using their playpen or crate so they’re away from you for periods of time throughout the day will help to prep them for when you need to leave them to go to work or out for errands, and reduce the chances of separation anxiety forming.

Which activity from this list is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!

Do you have puppy training questions we can help you with? Join our next Ask a Puppy Trainer Show LIVE Q&A on Instagram @thepuppyacademy every Wednesday at 1 pm PT!

For more of our latest puppy tips, join our Very Important Puppy (VIP) list to get them right in your inbox every week!

Check out these related blogs on puppy training and more!

Activities to do After Spay or Neuter!

How to Train Your Puppy for Car Rides!

Introducing Your Puppy to Your Cat!