On days when the wind is blowing just right, the sound of hounds can barely be heard from my yard. They have to be several miles away as most days I can’t hear them, but if there is a gentle breeze from the northeast, the sound of their barking is almost always there. As someone who loathes incessant barking, I can’t imagine having those barking dogs on my property—it would no doubt drive me crazy! On the other hand, I suspect this barking may have a soothing quality to the houndsman that owns them. No doubt, noise tolerance is extremely subjective, and certainly, it comes with the territory with some breeds. But, if you’re like me and have a low noise tolerance, this article is for you! There are things we can do as owners to avoid developing a noisy dog, and I’d like to explore some of those tactics here.

While on its surface, avoiding creating a noisy dog seems like a pretty straightforward topic, the reality is that there are multiple layers to this onion, and answers are not always easy.

Why are Some Dogs Noisy?

Dogs bark for a variety of reasons, but the majority of the time it’s for one of three reasons: alarm (reactivity), anticipation (such as waiting for a duck to show up), or demand (such as asking to be let out of a crate). These aren’t all of the reasons a dog might be noisy, but I’d argue that they’re the three main reasons. For the purpose of this article, I’m going to focus on the last two—anticipation and demand—as I believe these are most applicable to the hunting dog community. Both causes of barking can be managed to varying degrees, but starting early is paramount to success.

Anticipation - For a hunting dog, this form of vocalization often shows up multiple times in a day of hunting. From the moment your dog sees you pull the shotgun out of the safe, the anticipation of what comes next causes many dogs to start whining and barking. This continues on through loading into their crate; arriving at the field (or marsh); and for a duck dog, while waiting in the blind. Any form of waiting for a reward (i.e., a bird) causes this anticipatory whining or barking to occur.

Many owners seem to pick and choose when they like and dislike this type of vocalization. More than once, I’ve heard an owner proudly mention that their dog likes to whine and bark every time they get out the shotgun, but often that same owner is frustrated that their dog is noisy in the duck blind—more on this later!

Demand - This form of vocalization is most often seen when a dog is confined in a crate and wants to get out. In an effort to get what they want, they bark to make their displeasure known, and to demand a change. This type of vocalizing is most often disruptive in the house, but also shows up in hunting scenarios—such as when one dog is left in the crate while another one is hunting.

Understanding Why Your Dog is Barking

While a dog may bark or whine from excitement or desire, those are only triggers for the noise—the actual cause is deeper than that. To really understand how to avoid or fix a behavior, it’s crucial to understand WHY the behavior started originally. When you boil it right down, all behaviors are a product of one of two things: genetics or environment (sometimes described as nature or nurture). When it comes to noisy dogs, either (or both) could be the culprit.

Genetics - Noisy dogs often produce noisy offspring. Spend enough time around dogs, and you’ll no doubt see patterns from one generation to the next, and noise is often a genetic trait that gets passed along. Unfortunately, genetics are often difficult to overcome, so if a noisy dog bothers you, it would serve you well to do your due diligence to make sure you’re getting a puppy that has relatively quiet parents. Once you own a puppy, the genetics are what they are—you can’t change genetics. Time spent doing research ahead of time will be more than worthwhile. That being said, if you happen to already have a pup that is genetically predisposed to be noisy, all is not lost; creating the right environment can help minimize the noise.

Environment - Anything external that your pup encounters is environment. How you interact with it, what it’s exposed to, rewards, consequences, they’re all part of the pup’s environment, and they start the very moment the pup is born. While genetics are a constant, the environment is variable and changes throughout the life of the dog. As your pup’s owner, creating the best possible environment is your responsibility. From my experience, there are two environmental “mistakes” that many owners unknowingly make that contribute to a noisy dog.

• Rewarding the wrong thing: This seems obvious, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone tell their dog that “they’re a good boy” while they’re whining to be let out of a crate (or even worse, letting them OUT of the crate because they’re noisy). Dogs learn from cause and effect—if they get let out of their crate when they bark, you can be confident they’ll try that trick again!
• Building excitement by inadvertently following patterns: Anticipation comes from the expectation of what’s next. When you were a child, December 24th was a day filled with energy because you knew what came next—Christmas! When you take your shotgun out of the safe, your dog is filled with excitement—not from the shotgun itself, but from what it represents. Similarly, when you pick up your pup’s food dish, it creates anticipation, which creates excitement, which often causes whining or barking.

Ways to Avoid Having Noisy Dogs

While it would be impossible to cover every possible scenario and situation, there are some concepts that, if consistently applied, will no doubt help your dog to stay quieter. Complete silence in most cases is a unicorn!

Careful selection beforehand - One more time for the people in the back—genetics are real, and if you get a pup that has noisy parents, you will more than likely struggle with your pup growing into a noisy adult dog. Do your homework ahead of time, it will be worth it!

Think like a dog: What are we reinforcing? - At the very first sign of vocalization, and even prior, I think it’s important to consider our dog’s perspective. Dogs aren’t all that complex, they offer behaviors in order to get what they want. If vocalization gets them something positive, they will likely repeat the behavior. This makes it absolutely crucial that you, as the owner/trainer, make sure that you are not even inadvertently rewarding vocalization from your dog. By doing so, you would only be reinforcing the behavior that you are trying to avoid.

An example of this would be when a dog is barking to be let out of a crate. The owner is planning to let the dog out anyway, and so the dog gets let out. In the owner’s mind, they weren’t rewarding the barking since they were going to let the dog out anyway. In the dog’s simple mind, they were let out solely because they were barking. And just like that, barking was inadvertently rewarded. Remember, your dog has the ultimate decision in why something happened, it’s your responsibility to make sure your actions help them come to the right conclusions.

Change it up - If we go hunting every time we take the shotgun out of the safe, we are creating a pattern that our dog will quickly pick up on. I like to change things up enough that expectations aren’t formed. Sometimes that means I have to change plans on the fly. If I take the shotgun out of the safe and my dog starts whining or barking, I might instead hold the gun for a few moments and then put it back in the safe, thus proving their expectation wrong. As owners, it’s crucial that we tailor our interactions to the behavior our dog is showing us. Even if we PLANNED to do something, at the first sign our dog may be starting to vocalize due to anticipation, we need to pivot and do something else in order to reduce the anticipation.

Having Reasonable Expectations About Dog Noise

Complete silence will likely never happen—it is one of the ways dogs communicate, after all. But it can be managed to varying degrees of success. Pick the right pup, make sure you’re not creating an environment that encourages barking, and then stay consistent. Above all, have fun with your pup and enjoy the training process.