Dog owners don’t want to be the one that does not know how to stop a dog from barking at guests and visitors as it can cause a lot of disturbance.
Hearing your dog barking can be new and annoying, but it is normal for dogs as it is the only way they know to communicate and protect their territory.
Hearing your dog bark at guests can be irritating, but it doesn’t mean that your dog is suspecting something or hates your guests, but it is to protect their owner and property from any perceived unwanted threat.
Barking is not always a bad thing as this the way they know and are trained to alert you from any upcoming danger, as some dogs are solely kept for guarding or protecting purposes.
However, if your dog starts to bark whenever your visitor comes up to their yard for no reason, you are responsible for his behaviour and need to do something about it.
To make your pooch settled down, appropriate training is the only way to make your dog stop barking aggressively at your guests or visitors.
How to stop a dog from barking at guests?
As a dog owner, it is your responsibility to make sure that people are not bothered because of your dog. You need to take charge and try to stop your dog from barking at your visitor or any other stranger passing by your home.
Some reasons to understand why your dog may be barking
- Your dog may be barking after seeing your visitor hanging around the yard for some reason.
- Your dog may feel overprotective towards you and your home as he considers it his territory.
- It can be a way to communicate his mood as sometimes your dog can feel bored or anxious.
- Your visitor may startle your dog while passing by your home.
Getting your dog to stop barking without training will be very hard to do, so here are tips and tricks on how to stop a dog from barking at guests or visitors.
Ignore your dog behavior
Suppose your dog is barking every now and then and you quickly run towards your dog when it happens. Perhaps, it is best to react the other way around and start ignoring your dog, as he could relate his behaviour with your swift span of attention.
So instead of running towards your dog to make him quiet down, you should try ignoring him for some time to make him understand that this barking trick is not working anymore and he should move on.
But as soon as your dog stop barking, you need to reward him dog with your attention (and a treat!) so that he understands what you are expecting from him.
Train your dog to stop at your command
Training is very important for every dog, no matter if he is new in your home or is part of the family for some time now.
While training your dog, the first thing you need to do is to be consistent and command him to stop each and every time it happens so that your dog can fully understand the rules of your house.
The need for you to be consistent with your training sessions is a very important factor if you want your dog to learn and adopt a new behaviour because a one time intervention will not make your dog learn anything even if he is a fast learner.
After teaching your dog a specific behaviour to adopt on a particular command, you need to practice it daily.
For training to be effective, all members of the family should be correcting your dog behaviour, the same way, not just you as the dog owner.
While training your dog, the key factor will be the point where you reward him after following a certain command, and the reward can be (should be) his favourite treat.
Train your dog to be more social
The next step after making your dog learn a certain set of commands is to make him socialize more; for this step, you can take your dog to a park where there will be more people and dogs to see.
You can also take your dog on a walk into areas beyond the usual neighbourhoodto expose him to more situations where he can make the difference between a friendly character and someone who can be a threat.
Isolate your dog
Isolating your dog in a room in order to prevent him from barking at guests can be called a solution, but it will not be solving the main problem; it will be more like ignoring it.
In case you have no other option other than leaving your dog home alone while you are out working, then the best thing to do will be to just put on some white noise or some music and close the curtains on your windows so that your dog cannot spot or hear anybody outside the house that may trigger his barking.
Final word
In the preceding paragraphs we have come up with tips to the answer the question How to stop a dog from barking at guests?
Please let us know in the comments section below if you feel this article has helped you train your dog. Also, let us know your own tricks and ideas you use when you are faced with the same situation.