How to STOP Barking at the Fence Once and For All - No Corrections

Whenever dogs bark at the fence, at people walking by, dogs walking by, or even the neighbors, we humans tend to make one very typical mistake. And I have seen that mistake in my seven years of dog training in pretty much every single fence case. But we will come to that a little bit later. First, let's see why dogs bark at the fence in the first place and how we can stop it. Now, you might have heard the term territorial to describe a dog barking at the fence. So a dog who is charging the fence, barking at whoever walks by, drives by, or even stands in the neighbor garden, right? And that term means nothing else than a dog who is protecting what is important to that dog. And that is the safety of his or her own home. So it is pretty much resource guarding. So we see a dog who is no different than a dog that is guarding the food bowl, for example, right? So what happens is the dog is not quite sure that whoever's walking past or whoever's standing in the neighbor garden isn't a threat. So he feels the need to protect the safe zone. So what we always have in a dog who is lunging, barking, growling, or even biting the fence is fear. So we have a little bit of insecurity or even a lot of insecurity or fear. Or in other words, we can say that the dog doesn't trust whoever is coming toward the fence. Now, if we have dogs that fence fight with each other, so one dog going at the fence and the neighbor dog going at the fence, and they're trying to fight each other through the fence, we don't see much fear in that, right? What we see is rage. So we see them going at each other, being angry, but the underlying emotion, what has been there first was fear, or at least a little bit distrust or insecurity, or both. Why we need to know this is because it gives us a direction of how to train this. Because if we want to increase the safety of the dog's own home, so how the dog feels in his own home, we need to increase the overall feeling of safety. So as long as we overwhelm our dogs with guests that are scary or handymen that are just overwhelming the dog in some way, shape, or form, right? So we always have to keep in mind what's the dog's perspective. We might not see it as this is overwhelming for the dog, but if we look at the dog, it might be very overwhelming from the dog's point of view. So we have to read the dog's body language. And then we have to teach a strategy. So whenever our dogs know exactly what's going to happen and what they're supposed to do to feel better, situations become less and less overwhelming for them. So the strategy has to include some kind of safe space. That might mean extra room for whenever you have guests over. It might mean having your dog go to a target place, so right by your side or anything like that. It might mean your dog can be sure that guests will not enter the house at all because you're always in your backyard or whatever it means for you and your dog, right? And then your dog needs to know what he's supposed to do. So that, again, can look very different for every dog. And I will link you a video in the description for teaching your dog how to stay cool when you have guests over. But basically, it can mean either coming with you and greeting the guests or not coming with you. And then it's a variety of behaviors you can teach. Meaning either stick with you and feel safe by your side or go to a specific place where you are safe from the guests or whatever it means for your dog. So it's always specifically tailored to your dog. Now, as soon as you have increased your dog's feeling of safety in your own home, you can start training at the fence. And yes, you can start training at the fence while you're increasing the safety of your dog's home for your dog. And you can also include confidence building exercises, things like that during the period of time you use for fence training. Now, the fence training itself, and now we get to the mistake, needs to be planned very well because we want to avoid the dog being able to charge the fence. Because every time your dog charges the fence, he will practice charging the fence. And you will get better at what you practice. And it's the same for your dog. So if your dog always practices charging the fence, you will get better at charging the fence. So the mistake everybody makes, and I did in the beginning as well, is having your dog off leash in your backyard. This is an absolute killer for fence training because it gives your dog the opportunity to charge the fence. If you have a leash on your dog, your dog's no longer able to charge the fence. So no more alone time in the backyard. That's, for most dogs, not a good idea anyway because there is too much going on, the stress level is too high, and a too high stress level isn't a good idea for overall well-being anyway. For fence training, rule number one, we always go into the backyard together. Rule number two, whenever you see something, good things happen. So we keep in mind that our dogs lunch and bark because they feel insecure and they are afraid that whoever's walking past might threaten their safe zone. So what we need is, we need to trigger positive emotions that can overrule these negative ones. So what I like to use is a marker word, and a marker word tells your dog that was right, you will get a reward. So I mark looking at whatever is walking by and I treat my dog with either a treat or play or running together or whatever my dog likes in that moment. And that way I have interrupted the urge to charge the fence, I have triggered positive emotions, and therefore I have eliminated the need to charge the fence. Now the only thing I need to make this stick is some kind of alternative behavior because I will not be in the backyard always, right? Now I will combine looking at the other dog, person, whatever, and then go sniff because I want my dog to connect, there is somebody at the other side of the fence, so I do something else, right? And sniffing is something that comes very natural to dogs, so this is something that in most cases works pretty well. Some dogs like to watch and that's okay too, as long as they don't charge the fence, watching is totally fine, so you can reward the watching as well. But if you're not sure what to pick, try sniffing first. And again, the more confidence your dog gets overall, the easier your training will be. And if you want to see more confidence building exercises, watch this video.