Puppy barking before mealtime

[RYLEE SCHORN]

My golden retriever puppy has started barking/whining before mealtime. He is obviously excited and I’m not sure how to stop him from doing this. I read the section on the form about excited whining. I read to give the dog attention once it stops barking. What happens is I feed my puppy half kibble and half fresh food. The barking occurs when I’m preparing his food in the kitchen. I put Ollie in his pen and he sees me getting his food ready. Once I walk over with his food bowl he generally stops barking and will sit but is barking whining and jumping the whole time I’m preparing the food. Any suggestions on how to stop the barking while I’m in the kitchen? Thank you 

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forums,

What makes one dog patiently wait for his meal lying down on his mat while another one is pacing, barking and whining in anticipation? Most likely, it's the dog's level of impulse control in other words the amount of training the dog has received. 

After all, if we think about it, training a dog mostly encompasses teaching a dog to better control his impulses. So just as you can train a dog to heel and control his impulse to forge ahead and pull, you can train your dog to calmly wait for his meal and then sit before you provide it.

Being that your puppy is young, this is a work in progress, but we can take a proactive approach to teach Ollie that "patience pays."  You may have to dedicate some time for the purpose of teaching him this concept, but it's worthy for the long run, and after all, the same principle applies to us humans as well (taking time to train, pays us too in the long run with a nice return on our investment!)

One question that comes to mind is: if meal preparation continues while he's barking that means we'll be rewarding the barking for food behavior as he does get fed at the end, so how can we put a stop to it? We still need to feed our dogs food, so it's not like not feeding them is an option. Getting upset about it and scolding the dog won't also help and most dogs may find this approach confusing and intimidating.

How about instead, informing your dog that his barking doesn't expedite you, but rather makes you work in slow-mo or even stop? Let's therefore take a look at how we can extinguish this type of barking. 

Barking Makes You Stop! 

So on a day when you have time, start preparing your dog's meal. Have him watch you. The moment your dog barks, stop in your tracks. Just freeze like a statue and wait for about 8-10 seconds of quiet. Once he has been quiet for those seconds, resume preparing his food. Keep doing this: freeze when he barks and resume and expedite when he is quiet for at least those seconds. If he persists on barking, you can even walk away from the food station and come back only once quiet for at least 10 seconds. 

To make the first sessions easier, have some of the meal preparation work cut out for you. In other words, have the kibble already premeasured in a baggie and the fresh food in another one. You can prepare these while your dog is out in the yard or is out for a walk. This will help both you and your puppy succeed so that you can build up on that, and gradually raise criteria by adding further steps. 

Training a dog who has barked during meal preparation for quite some time will take some time and it's normal to encounter certain problems. For instance, if your dog's barking seems to be increasing rather than decreasing, this may signal what's known as an "extinction burst," but no worries, this is a good thing!

Basically, what's happening is that your dog is increasing his barking in hopes of getting your attention since it no longer seems to be working, so your dog may at some point try to bark louder or longer than before.

It's as if your dog is saying " Hey, what's up with you today? Usually, when I whine you speed up and feed me, today instead you are slowing down and even stopping! Don't you hear me? Bark, bark bark, I am even jumping higher too!" There are also chances that your dog may try another behavior, a different one, such as pawing at the pen.

If your dog goes through such an extinction burst, no worries! It's actually a good thing, signaling that your training is working! Just keep stopping food preparation during barking and resuming when your dog has been quiet for some time.  

If you keep it up and persist, your dog will get the point and reduce whining, but be careful: if you are in a rush one day and give in just to stop the barking, chances are you will end up with barking that's even worse than before because your dog will be learning that persistence pays off! So keep up the training.

If one day, you don't have time to train these valuable lessons, prepare the meal in advance while your dog is in the yard, so that you have it already in the food bowl and just have to grab it and ask for a sit and then lower the bowl with the dog behaving nicely. This is a great way to call your dog and reinforce that by the way! Hide the bowl behind your back, call your dog when out in the yard, and then reinforce that by asking for a sit and then lowering the food bowl. 

In the background, don't forget to start introducing your puppy to some impulse control exercises:

 https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/10-impulse-control-games-for-dogs/

I hope this helps! Keep us posted on how things go.

Happy training!

Best,

Adrienne