How do you stop a dog from whining , barking, and howling?

Question

My sister left her dog with me --- she said he be fine --I took him for a walk -- brought him in put him in his kennel --- he started to whine -- then bark and then howl -- he only stops howling when I walk him and I can't walk him for the next 4 four straight and then walk him 2 miles home --if I let him out he'll claw up my front door --- no leash to chain him outside -- besides he'd howl out there and bother the neighbors -- How do you stop a dog from whining, barking and howling? Thanks for any advice.

I did give him a chew toy that kept him quiet for about 30 seconds...

Answer 1

Here are a couple of articles from my website that will be able to help you. The dog is showing classic signs of separation anxiety. The first article is about separation anxiety and the second about how to stop your dog from barking. Good Luck.

Separation Anxiety: What it is and Treatments

Separation anxiety has confused owners for many years. It was believed that separation anxiety was caused because the dog ‘loved’ the owner so much. The dog then became so upset at the owners departure that it would destroy anything it could get a hold of. Or bark or howl non-stop until the owner returned home. This would explain the over excited welcome when the owner would return home. The dog would jump up on the owner, bark and whine and sometimes jump from one article of furniture to the other, all in an excited, “Your Home!” way. Although that is how it seems to us, it is not the case. By interpreting these gestures in this way we are humanizing our dogs. That is we are assuming that dogs, and other animals for that matter, think and communicate in the same way we do. By humanizing our dogs we are ignoring what they are actually trying to tell us, creating aggression and frustration in our dogs.
All creatures interpret gestures in a different way. Cats and dogs for example. When a dog is happy it will wag its tail back and forth with ears relaxed and slightly back and mouth slightly open. When a cat performs the same gestures it means something completely different. A cat will only ‘wag’ its tail in annoyance or anger. When a cats ears are back it is a sign of aggression and a mouth open means ‘hissing’ or a bite is coming. Is it any wonder why dogs and cats generally have a hard time getting along? They are constantly sending mixed signals to each other.
The same applies to humans and dogs. If we were to come home to our children and they jump up on you and get all excited we would say that they missed us. We humanize our dogs by believing that this is what they are trying to say to us when they perform the same actions. If fact you are way off.
It all comes down to superiority. Most owners send their dog’s mixed signals on a daily basis. The signals you send your dog are saying that you are unstable, (yelling, excited behavior), and below the dog in rank. Domesticated dogs follow the same basic pack instincts as wild dogs. Every pack has a leader or leaders, and followers. Since it is obvious that dogs do not communicate the same way we do, it is important to learn how they communicate, in order to understand what our dogs are trying to tell us, how we can talk to our dogs, and how to become pack leader. Dogs use basic body signals and energy to communicate. If you learn to interpret these signals, and focus on your dog’s energy you will find it easy to understand why your dog is behaving badly, and what it wants or needs. It is important for you to be the pack leader and not your dog. The pack leader is responsible for: the safety and well being of the pack, determining if visitors are a threat to the pack or not, leading the “hunt”, (walk), or any venture outside the “den”, (your home), and protecting the pack and den from outside threats. Your dog lacks understanding of the world, to perform the duties of pack leader. Your dogs lack of understanding and its belief that it is the pack leader, can lead to separation anxiety, excessive pulling on the lead, excessive barking and many more common behavior problems.
If your dog believes it is the pack leader, and you, as their responsibility, leave the den without them, this can send your dog into a frenzy. Think of it this way. Your five year old walks out of your home without you. The doors are locked and you are prevented from getting to your child. You have no idea where your child is going, if they will be safe and if they are ever coming back. You would be frantic trying to get out. You would probably try to rip down the door. If that didn’t work you would become hysterical and cry, even yell. You may become angry and look for something to wreak to relieve the tension and pain you feel. Sound familiar? These are generally the same feelings your dog is going through when you leave it behind. Your dog has no idea where you are going, if you will be back and if you will be safe. This creates anger and frustration. Just like us, our dogs need to find a way to relieve the tension. They do this by digging at floors and doors, ripping at windows and walls, and chewing furniture and objects. Again, sound familiar?
When you come home to find the mess your dog has created, or a neighbor comes by to tell you of all the noise your dog makes when left alone, what do you do? Generally you punish the dog. You yell and curse and, sometimes hit your dog. You believe that because your dog has a ‘guilty look’, that it knows what it has done and knows that it was wrong. There we go again, humanizing our dogs. A dog cannot connect something it did 10, even 5 minuets ago to the punishment it is receiving now. What your dog sees it a confirmation of its fears. While you were out something happened and it wasn’t there it protect you, causing you to react this way. This causes your dog to become frustrated because it feels it is not living up to its job of pack leader. This can cause your dog to become increasingly dominant over you and increase the separation anxiety when you leave.
The first step you must take in correcting separation anxiety is to establish yourself as the pack leader. Once the job of pack leader is removed from your dog it will relax and the anxiety will fade. Follow the steps laid out in ‘Paws-itive Bonding’. A copy of this training process is available by emailing: [e-mail] or in hard copy at: Top Knot Professional Grooming, 9 Doric St. Unit #3, Ajax, Ontario, L1S 7L5.
After establishing yourself as pack leader it is time to de-sensitize your dog to you leaving. Many times separation anxiety is corrected by Paws-itive Bonding, but for times when it is not there are simple steps you need to take.
First you need to make a list of the rituals you go through when leaving the house. For example: Grabbing your keys and jacket, putting on your shoes, walking to the door and any thing you say to your dog or other family members before you leave. Generally owners will say things like, “I’ll be right back”, or “Be good”, to their dogs as they leave. This draws attention to your leaving and will create confusion and anxiety in your dog because it has no idea what you just said. For all your dog knows you are saying good bye forever. You must never draw attention to yourself when you leave. Dogs pay great attention to your movements and body language. They come to understand that grabbing your keys and putting on your shoes means that you are leaving the den. You need to de-sensitize your dog to these cues. During your time at home, when you are not planning to go out, put on your jacket and grab your keys. Then sit down on your couch and watch some television. Once you grab your jacket and keys your dog will be paying attention to you. By sitting down on the couch it changes the cue. It says that although you may have done the things that generally mean you are leaving, you didn’t. After a while get up and remove your jacket and place your keys back down. This signals to your dog that those cues are no longer reliable in assessing that you are leaving. This will need to be practiced often until your dog seems to pay no attention to these cues. It is important to distance yourself from your dog for a period of time depending on the severity of the separation anxiety. If it is only a mild case you may only need to distance yourself for 30 minutes before you leave and 30 minutes after you return home. If it is a severe case you will need to completely distance yourself from your dog until the anxiety is removed. By distancing yourself I mean no talking, touching or looking at your dog. In severe cases you may need to ignore your dog for days until the anxiety fades. This may sound cruel to you but it is a necessary evil to remove your dog’s anxiety. It will reduce the attachment your dog has to you, thus reducing the anxiety when you leave. This is not to say that your dog will not love you anymore, and your dog will not think that you no longer love it. There is an unbreakable bond between man and dog. A little time apart is not going to break this bond. I promise. It will actually strengthen your relationship in a more normal calm way. After your dog’s anxiety is removed you can reduce the amount of time you ignore your dog when you come home. Always remember the second step of Paws-itive Bonding, (the greeting). This still must be practiced to maintain your leadership.
The next step is distraction. Purchase a rubber Kong toy, nylon bone you can drill holes into, or natural bone with a marrow removed. Stuff the toy with peanut butter or cheese whiz. (You can purchase stuffers for these toys at any local pet store, however peanut butter and cheese whiz is much cheaper.) Give this now stuffed toy to your dog 10 to 15 minutes before you leave the house. If your dog is anything like mine however, you may need to either re-stuff the toy or give it to your dog 5 minutes before you leave. After your dog is engorged in the toy, you can silently slip out of the house. This acts as a diversion to you leaving. If your dog is food oriented, and doesn’t go through bouts of not eating when you are gone, you can leave small treats hidden around your home for your dog to find. This is like a game to your dog that will also distract it from your absence.
Anxiety is a very serious problem. It is up to you, as a responsible pet owner, to help your dog dissolve this problem. By following the steps of Paws-itive Bonding and de-sensitizing your dog to you leaving, you and your dog will be able to live a normal balanced life together for years to come.

By: Sarah Hill – Owner; Top Knot Professional Grooming & Paws-itive K9 Consulting

How to Stop your Dog From Barking
To stop a dog from barking you must first understand why they bark. Dogs bark to signal to the rest of their pack, (meaning any humans or animals in your household), that they believe there is a potential threat to the safety of the pack. This can be barking at sounds outside that they can not see, strangers walking past your home or yard, visitors coming into your home and even cars driving by outside. One of the main problems with constant barkers is the fact that they believe that they are the “pack leaders”, therefore responsible for the safety of the pack. Not understanding this fact can lead to frustration on your part because to you it seems like your dog may be barking at every little thing for no reason. Barking signals the pack to be on alert. If you are acknowledging this by yelling at your dog or smacking your dog, it will confuse the dog. It sends the signal that you are mad at them for doing the job they feel they were elected to do. To stop a dog from barking, you must establish to them that you are the pack leader. This takes the responsibility away from your dog and places it on you. Giving you a more calm and relaxed dog. Your dog will still bark when it feels there may be a threat, but all you will have to do is use a signal phrase to stop your dog from barking. This can be anything from, “quiet”, “enough” or even “thank you”. Your dog will come to understand that once he/she has risen the alarm and you say your signal phrase, that you are handling the situation and the dog can relax, thus stopping the barking. I first ask you to read the article: “How to Tell if Your Dog Has a Superiority Complex, and What to Do About It” at http://www.thepetproject.zoomshare.com Follow the steps of Paws-itive Bonding laid out in this article. This is the first step you must take to effectively stop your dog from barking. The next step is to establish your signal phrase. Use a word that is easy for the dog to understand. One word that is not associated with any other training your dog has had. Example: If you used the word “stop” in previous training to stop your dog when walking, don’t use it again here. When your dog starts to bark, say your dogs name, to get their attention so they know you are referring to them, and use your signal phrase. Example: “Fido, quiet”, or “Fido, enough”. If your dog stops barking, praise them and give a food reward. I use food rewards to first introduce new training, however I have come across some dogs that will bark just to get the food reward. So after your dog has gotten the hang of things, you need to drop the food reward to every other time, then to once in a while. Praise will be just as good to the dog as a food reward. If your dog ignores your command and continues to bark, quietly and calmly walk over to your dog. Place one hand gently over your dogs muzzle to close his/her mouth while saying your signal phrase calmly. You must be very calm. If you are agitated or loud your dog will sense that you are upset and believe that there is a real danger to the pack, thus confirming its alarm signal. Once the dog has stopped barking, reward and praise. If, however your dog still believes that he/she is the pack leader, your attempts to stop the barking may do no good. The idea that a subordinate is telling the leader to stop what it is doing, only increases dominate behavior. This can lead to, jumping up on you to appear bigger and to look you in the eye, ( a very dominate thing to do), as well as food protectiveness, pulling on the lead and aggressive behavior. It is very important to establish leadership to your dog. This opens the door to easy training. This will take time and patience, but it will pay off. Your dog will come to understand that it is thanked for the alarm, and the cavalry is here to take over, signaling that his/her work is done. Soon all you will have to say is your signal phrase and your dog will stop barking. Leaving you to a calm and quiet home. By: Sarah Hill – Owner Paws-itive K9 Consulting & Top Knot Professional Grooming - Ajax

Answer 2

First I want to thank you for asking and seeking help with this. I know this is long, but hang with me and read on. Here we go... Ok, what you have there with the dog is a possible case of "seperation anxiety". Did your sister tell you, has he done this with her while she is home? If the answer is no, this behavior can be corrected, but it may not happen over-night, you must be patient. The first thing that your doing great with is walking. Every dog must be walked at least 30 minutes a day. Now, you don't mention what type of dog you have there or how old, but if your walking him at least 30 minutes everyday and this is not working, you might try walking him 2 times a day, if your not able to do this, then when you do walk him, get him a doggie backpack and put a couple of bottles of water in each side of it to give it added weight. This will help to drain some more of the energy he is using while walking. This in-itself should quiet him down somewhat. You see all dogs are made of energy, some have more than others. The only way for a dog to get rid of some of this energy is by walking. You see, when we humans decided to own dogs, we also took on the responsibilty of "pack leader". At least we should have. The pack leader provides everything for the other dogs in the pack. The pack leader tells the others when to sleep, eat, drink, walk, play, and rest. Everything. That's where we humans come in; we must provide all of these things for our dogs. If after you do this and it is still not helping, here is something else you can do. Put the dog on a collar and leash. Keep him with you in the house; you can tie the leash to your belt loop or whatever, but keep him with you. Now, the moment he begins to whine or whatever, form your hand into a claw, use the tips of your fingers to make a striking motion to your dogs neck area, and while doing this make a 'tsk' sound, or some sort of sound. Remember though, when you do this you have got to make the correction and the precise moment your dog whines/barks or whatever. You also must be consistent. And, remember to remain calm/assertive, your dog should be calm/submissive. After you do this correction with him several times, he'll get the idea. Because, what you are doing here is being the pack-leader and telling him whining/barking is not an acceptable behavior. Your hand in the form of a claw represents the pack leader (dog's) mouth, and the fingers are the teeth. Also, when you make that 'tsk' sound, this sound inturrupts his thinking pattern, and he will stop doing the unwanted behavior. If you do not feel comfortable doing this, please contact a trainer or behaviorist in your area. But, one thing you can do is get him out and walk him. Letting him outside to play and run around does not take the place of this walk. Thank you.

Answer 3

Some dogs just hate being alone. i am currentley petsitting a neighbors chihuahua, and she is getting very attached to me, and whines and barks when i leave her alone. she also follows me EVERYWHERE. but i do NOT reccomend a bark collar that gives a shock to your dog when it detects barking. i think that isnt very effective, but it is also a very harsh and mean way to "train" your dog. try watching some shows on animal planet, like "Its Me or the Dog" and other shows about dog training. there are different methods to stop barking so at least one should work. even Google ways to keep a dog from barking when its left alone. theres gotta be something that will work. but if something doesnt start working right away, dont give up and move on. give a week or two with each method to really see if your dog improves. if it doesnt and you really feel that method wont work, try something else. good luck!

Answer 4

First of all, the dog may be having separation anxiety. When your sister comes back, you need to tell her she needs to train her dog and prepare it so it doesn't suffer from anxiety. See the site listed for tips on how to train it.

The only thing I can suggest is have your sister call you and leave messages for the dog, maybe it will calm down if it hears her voice and also leave lots of toys and treats around. If you're not there all day to care for the dog, maybe you can have one of the neighborhood kids walk it around more often throughout the day and/or watch it while you're gone. Good luck.
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Very social animals, dogs prefer to be with others. When left alone, some companion canines become very distressed, suffering from an attachment disorder known as separation anxiety. Dogs who suffer from separation anxiety just can’t learn to cope with being alone, and they express their anxiety by barking, howling, whining, chewing, soiling, and/or attempting to escape

Answer 5

The dog misses your sister and is waiting for her return. Putting the dog in its kennel is not a good thing right now or any other time. Keep the dog company. Pet it and give it a gentle rubdown. Make sure it has food and most importantly, water. Just pay attention to the animal. Dogs are highly social animals. It's lonely.

Answer 6

Dogs are pack animals. It probably just wants to be with you. He is in a new enviroment and with a stranger. Good job on taking him for a walk. That will help also. It also depends on if the dog is create-trainined. If not, its just throwing a fit because its in there and not out, if left alone he'll get over himself. But be sure to pay attention to him as well.

Answer 7

NEVER PUT THE DOG IN THE KENNEL IF IT CAN SEE YOU. My dog does the same thing. He wants to play. Dogs are hyperactive, especially in the daytime, let them run around. If you're afraid he'll scratch things up, just keep watch, like call him to your side whenever he strays out of your sight.

Just don't lock him up. It's only 4 hours to keep a dog by your side. I can do that easily.

Answer 8

whatever you do, don't listen to jessica b. Dogs can and will retaliate, especially when verbalizing. Try bringing the dog outside, it might have to use the restroom. Offer fresh food and water and a chew toy. If that doesn't help, give it ONE capsule of allergy benedryl. It is harmless ( we use it on my overly active dog and the vet even told us to!) and will make him tired.

Answer 9

ur sister's dog probably misses her. just comfort the dog like hugging him/her and petting. my dog was like that 4 a while and i tried comforting him. it calmed him down. it will probably work. give the dog some blankets 4 the dog 2 sleep on and some food and water. and also play wit him/her

~good luck~

Answer 10

It's because the dog misses your sister. Just show it a little bit of love and it will start to like you. Once it trusts you then just try to become his friend. He will lick you if he likes you.

Answer 11

we had the same problem while ago. the best thing to stop him doing all this bring the dog in side the home and make him sit besides you.i am sure the dog 'll be OK then.