“Can the person with the barking dog please go on mute?” These days what used to make for a funny story over drinks with friends, has become a near constant headache for many dog parents who simply can’t figure out how to get their dogs to stop barking during their marathon of Zoom meetings. For help we sat down with Gwen Podulka, a certified professional dog trainer - knowledge assessed (CPDT-KA), who recently joined us for a special Instagram Live devoted to all things reactivity. During the Live she told us in passing that reducing barking during Zoom meetings is the number one topic on her clients’ minds these days, so we knew we just had to follow up with this special Q&A.

Let’s start from the beginning, Gwen, because barking is actually really fascinating. Why do dogs bark in general?

Because they can! It is totally normal for dogs to bark and not all barking is bad. Barking is also an amazing form of communication. If you take it away and tell them never to do it, you have to be incredible at reading dog body language, and typically humans are not great at that. If our goal is a quiet conference call, we have to first understand what kind of barking our dog is practicing before we come up with a plan to help.

I like to break down barking into nine different categories. In training, we try our best to stick to describing behavior rather than interpreting for our dogs, but for the sake of simplicity, I am going to insert a bit of human thinking here to make it easier for people to get the basic gist. Here’s what our dogs are trying to tell us:

So why do dogs bark during Zoom conference calls?

This is a loaded question, and there isn’t one simple answer. I do think it is an important question for people to think about with their own dogs because it helps them to understand what is driving that barking behavior if they want to teach a different one. For the purposes of this article, let’s talk about some of the factors that could be at play.

Gwen, seen here with her dogs, Lemon and Bug, has over 20 years of experience as a certified professional dog trainer.

Your dog may be excited or frustrated and want your attention. In video conference calls, we tend to be fairly engaged. Your dog might be responding to your tone and energy on the call and could be getting excited or frustrated that you are engaging with a silly screen instead of them. Your dog may have initially made more subtle plays for your attention that went unnoticed and now is amping up to barking. And if you think about it, when your dog barks while you are on an important call, it tends to immediately get your attention as you attempt to prevent a giant racket. Barking quickly increases as soon as your dog realizes he has the power to shift your attention from the screen in front of you.

Your dog may be noticing and reacting to things on the video conference call. If you are on speaker, your dog may hear another dog bark on the call and start responding to that. Your dog may even be responding to the tones of other voices on the call. Some dogs even pay attention to what they are seeing on the screen, and that could lead to barking.

Your dog may be reacting to triggers totally separate from the call. Some dogs are very sensitive to noise and motion outside of your windows and doors and will bark when they see or hear things. This type of barking may have been happening long before today, but it is only becoming something you notice as an issue now that you are home all day.

Your dog may be sensitive to your complete change in routine. The world likely feels quite different to your dog -- both inside and outside of your home. If you’ve never been home 24/7 like this, you’ve never really engaged with the world in this way in front of your dog, so it is a completely new “picture” for him that he is trying to sort out. Depending on how your routine has changed, your dog may also be feeling a bit uneasy or may not have the same mental, physical, and social outlets that he used to have.

So how can I get my dog to stop barking while I am on my video conference calls?

Like most everything that we work on with our dogs, we want to think about both training and management. Training is where you will proactively teach the behavior you want, but since that can take some time and we are realists here, you also need some management tactics to help you get through your calls in the interim.

What should I do in the moment if my dog starts barking during a call and I haven’t had the opportunity to train around this scenario? If possible, mute yourself and then quickly and calmly find a way to redirect your dog to something that is not barking (for example, you could give them a chew or pull them up into your lap to love on them). You could also put your dog in his crate or in a separate room as long as that is not something that will increase the level of barking when it comes to your dog. If your dog has a strong “go to mat’ behavior that is associated with calm, you could also cue that. You are human and doing the best you can in this bizarre new situation, so just pick the least aversive option to manage your dog’s behavior in that moment and keep yourself sane.

Now think of this call as a test that you and your dog took. Your dog barked a whole lot, so you failed. But that is totally okay! This is the kind of test you get to take again. You now get to use what you learned from this failed test to prepare for your next test (aka your next call).

But If I give my dog attention or a chew to manage his barking during a meeting like this will this behavior from me reward his barking? Probably. But in the moment, you just need to get through your important call, and that is okay. However, let’s clarify one thing: If the barking is fear-based reactivity, giving your dog attention or a chew will not “reward your dog for barking” (that is a false premise since fear is an emotion, not a behavior, and therefore cannot be reinforced).

What kind of training can I do to prevent my dog from barking during my calls?

Training is your chance to be proactive and really teach your dog the behavior you want from them when you are on these calls. Let’s talk about just a few of the things we can do to try to create more peaceful calls.

Train during pretend Zoom calls. Have you ever done a training session while you are on a Zoom call? If not, that “picture,” meaning what your dog sees and experiences while you are on a call, feels new to him, and dogs are not good at generalizing behaviors. You can try to replicate the picture of a Zoom call in a training session and teach your dog the behavior you want. This may mean going into the room where you work, turning on the computer, putting down your coffee, and starting to talk and gesture at the computer screen while you reward your dog for the desired behavior. You may want your dog to lie down calmly on a mat while you are on calls, so practice that. Start talking to your computer and drop treats on your dog's mat pretty frequently as long as he is calm. As you practice more, you won’t need to give as many treats. Then when it comes time for a real Zoom call, your dog will recognize this picture and likely make a choice that works better for you. (Tip: Have some treats ready to reward him for calm on a real call when you are first working on this.)
Proactively teach with an element of management. You may want to include a leash, crate, or baby gate into your practice training sessions in case you need to put your dog behind a gate on a real call. This way, if you have to use management, you and your dog already feel good about it.
Start working toward a settle on practice calls. Grab a good amount of food or treats and walk with your dog over to where you work (it may be good to have them on a leash here too). Say “settle” once as a way of letting your dog know that you plan to be here for a while. Then start capturing all of the behavior you like as you work toward a dog who is lying down and relaxed. To be clear, this is not a moment to be stingy. Find anything to reward. Is your dog standing up quietly? Give him a treat. Did your dog just sit down? Give him a treat. Did your dog lie down? Give him a treat. Is your dog still lying down? Keep giving treats. Then you can start talking at the screen like you would on a call. Did your dog stay quiet? Give him a treat. Tell your dog all the things you love by giving him treats during these moments.
Think about how you can pay your dog. If your dog is calmly lying on his bed, you can give a chew as a big reward (this also tends to keep dogs quiet since it gives them something to do). Don’t be afraid to also drop some treats in front of your dog to reward him for quietly chewing. Think about it: that is an awesome behavior to reward! No matter what, make sure you have lots of food or treats available for practice on real calls. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to reward our dog for something we like -- especially as we are first working on this.
Set up a Zoom happy hour with friends to create a more realistic practice for your dog. Just remember to bring your treats and reward your dog.
Keep your dog successful. If you are doing a practice call and your dog starts barking, I would probably just end the game. This tells you that you are not paying him at the level he needs. You need to shift how frequently you give paychecks (treats) and/or what you are paying them with (maybe they like a different type of treat more).

I've also noticed that my dog is barking a lot more out the window during the quarantine. Is there any way to help reduce this too?

For more on reactivity in general, check out this IG Live we did with Gwen on April 6.

This is a good question because this type of barking can require a different approach.

First, if your dog is barking out the window, you can try calling him over to you or asking him to go to his bed. If he responds to you and leaves the window, reward him since he did the behavior you asked.
If your dog is barking out your window a lot, I would look to do some management since we don’t want our dogs practicing a behavior we don’t like. You can add a white noise machine so he doesn’t hear as much noise outside or use a cover to block his view out of the window. You can buy film on Amazon that still lets some of the light in but obstructs your dog’s view outside. As a more DIY option, you could use tin foil, wax paper, etc. to cover the part of the window your dog can see out of.
It’s also important for you to see if you can identify why your dog is barking in order to find the right resource to help. Can you try to study his body language to see if he is offering you physical cues? Would some desensitization and counter conditioning help?

You can find out more about Gwen by visiting her website here.

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