How do you feel about dogs barking in your clinic? My dog barks at other dogs when I go and I feel embarrassed but I know he's just excited...
Dogs bark. That’s what they do.
If you work as a vet then you put up with a certain amount of animal noise, fur and mess. It comes with the territory. A certain amount of barking is okay.
Dogs bark for lots of different reasons. Some bark to say hello. Some bark because they want treats or have seen another dog. Some in the hospital bark because they need to go out to the toilet. All of these things we can manage.
The ‘problem’ barkers are the repetitive, monotonous or anxious barkers. Those dogs that are either constantly barking because their anxiety wont let them do anything else until their special human is with them, or their cognitive dysfunction is so bad that they can’t make sense of where they are and are in distress.
In both these scenarios the barking is just a symptom, not the underlying problem.
Anxious barkers are the most common. A dog that wants attention will eventually get bored, a dog that needs human attention to make it less terrified of the world will not be silent because the terrifying loneliness is still there, and barking is all it can do to change that.
Staffordshire bull terriers in particular seem prone to both anxiety, and a particular pitch of bark that drills into your brain to drive you insane. It’s not the dogs’ fault though. They need something. Whether that’s to go to the toilet, to go home or anxiolytics.
Barking is part of the normal behavioral repertoire of dogs, but abnormal barking might need to be addressed.
