# Barking when excited



## lilyloo (Jun 20, 2012)

3 years into her life and we have finally managed to control Ruby's tendency to jump on visitors (and us) when they first enter the house, but she has replaced her jumping behavior with barking. It's from pure excitement, I can tell, but how do we get her to stop? It's SO loud and embarrassing. If our visitor pets her right away she stops, but we don't want her to learn that barking = attention. If we tell our visitor to ignore her, it's a good minute or two of solid barking before she stops. Once she is quiet she immediately gets love, so I would think that she would learn that if she's quiet she gets attention, but it doesn't seem to be catching on.

Tips? Thanks!


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

Wish I could help! These dogs seem to go from one extreme to the other. My boy Willie is so quiet... he rarely barks. Sometimes I long to hear his voice! Once in a great while, if he is very hungry, he will go and sit beside his dishes and give me a big ROO-Roo-roo! That does not happen often, though. It sounds to me like you are doing it right. It will just take some time.


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

Does she normally know quiet as a command? If not, I would teach bark and quiet as paired skills as in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtn8NhofOw
Once she's got it down you could let your guests command bark to let her get it out, followed by quiet and give her a treat. 

If she already knows something to that effect, I would just practice it more with a friend.


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## Watson (Sep 17, 2012)

I agree, teach her "quiet". You can also pre-empt by having high value treats ready when you know you'll have visitors. It could help with getting her into a working zone, instead of an excited zone.

How long has she been doing this/have you been trying to break her of it? As you know, it takes quite some time for things to sink in with these guys - it also took us two years to teach Watson not to jump up on people. I know he knows he shouldn't jump up, because sometimes he starts to, and then stops himself halfway. I like to think of that as progress.  Hopefully you have some patient friends who can help you with it!


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## lilyloo (Jun 20, 2012)

Thanks, all! The barking when excited has been around for about a year, I would guess...which is also how long she has had great progress with not jumping on visitors. She just replaced one outlet with the other! We say "quiet" when she barks more than a couple times at someone walking by the window, etc. but I honestly don't think she *really* knows what it means. We have been resistant towards teaching her the "bark" command because we were worried that it would make her bark more...but I guess you can't teach one without the other! Great tips by all, thanks again.


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