If You Muzzle a Dog, Will That Stop Him From Barking All Night Long?
November 23, 2009 by Dog Lover
Filed under Dog Training
No, for the past year, I’ve put up with constant barking. We’ve taken him to the vet, he has no medical problems. We’ve tried sleeping with him, sitting with him, excercising him in the day so he’s tired at night, Eeping a light on, making no noise, keeping no lights on, keeping a nightlight on, keeping all the lights on, we’ve tried feeding him less, and feeding him more. We’ve tried letting him, we’ve tried closing the blinds, we’ve tried blocking the back windows, and we’ve tried comforting him. We’ve tried hunting outsidefor things bothering, and hunting inside. We’ve moved our cats out, and we’ve let them stay with him. We’ve tried pretty much everything, and invested a lot of money. Any ideas?
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that would be a cruel to do! Would you want someone to muzzle you all night?
Have you ever tried to see what your dog is barking at or told it to hush or quiet. maybe that would work better then muzzle it all night.
Or better yet buy some ear plugs!
ADD: is your dog a terrier? They bark at everything! My mom’s dog is a cairn terrier mix and she barks all the time(even if I tell her to shut up she will keep barking.
A muzzle won’t do anything to stop the barking, they can stil open their mouth to bark and drink!
and also muzzle can’t be left on unsupervised.
Never use shock collars
Shock Collars
Dogs wearing shock collars can suffer from physical pain and injury (ranging from burns to cardiac fibrillation) and psychological stress, including severe anxiety and displaced aggression. Individual animals vary in their temperaments and pain thresholds; a shock that seems mild to one dog may be severe to another. The anxiety and confusion caused by repeated shocks can lead to changes in the heart and respiration rate or gastrointestinal disorders. Electronic collars can also malfunction, either administering nonstop shocks or delivering no shocks at all.
Electronic Fences
Dogs whose yards are surrounded by electronic fences may develop fear or aggression aimed at what they believe is the source of the shock (kids riding by on bikes, the mail carrier, the dog next door, etc.). Dogs have been known to run through electronic barriers when frightened by fireworks or chasing a squirrel and then be too scared to cross back through the barrier.
Electronic fences may actually encourage animals to try to escape. Since dogs only suffer painful shocks in the yard, they may associate the shock with the yard itself—once they get out of the yard, the pain goes away. The fact that the pain returns when they try to reenter the yard can cause dogs to believe that they are being punished for returning home.
Even when animals are confined within certain boundaries of an electronic fence, they are still in danger of attacks by roaming dogs, cruel humans, or other animals, who can freely enter the property. Electronic fences are a dog thief’s dream come true!
Humane and Safe Boundaries
The most effective way to keep your dog safely confined to your property is to keep him or her inside the house when you aren’t home and allow him or her outside only under close supervision on a leash or in a securely fenced enclosure.
http://www.helpinganimals.com/animalsHome_dogs_shock.asp
Tip – 32 – Dog training – Barking dog – Treating Excessive “Alarm” OR “Warning” Barking
EXCESSIVE “ALARM” OR “WARNING” BARKING
Much of a dog’s barking is what can be called “alarm barking.” It is usually in the form of bursts of two or three barks with short pauses between them. It is an attempt to “call the pack” to check out something that they see or hear which may be threat. If you remember that barking is communication, it becomes fairly easy to stop. If, for example, they start excessive barking when someone comes near the door, or passes a window, you should go to the door or window, and let the dog see that you are inspecting the scene. Next, pat the dog and thank them for alerting you to someone being at the door. If there is someone there, have the dog sit and give them a treat. If not go back to where you were before, call the dog to you and praise them or give them a treat. DO NOT yell at them to “Shut up!” since they will interpret you shouts as barking. This will often result in increased barking since they feel that the leader of the pack responded to their barks with barks of his or her own, so the dog must be doing the right thing!
It is possible to train the dog to NEVER bark or call your attention to something being out of the ordinary around the house, however, this is not what you want. What you want is for the dog to continue alerting the household when there is something out of the ordinary for safety and security reasons. So accept your dog’s alarm call as part of the dog’s job. Once the dog has barked, however, your going to the door to see who is there should reassure the dog. The leader of the pack has responded to the dog’s communication and checked to make sure that everything under control. When the dog understands this, further barking and issuing of warnings is unnecessary.
http://www.pets.ca/pettips/tips-32.htm
As a last result try the ABS anti barking citronella spray collar
A harmless Citronella spray collar that conditions your dog to stop nuisance barking, 100% safe and painless for all Dogs, Humans and the Environment.
http://www.absaustralia.com.au/antibark-ani/antibark.htm
that’s just cruel. And if you did it he would just cry all night. You need to figure out why you’re dog is barking and fix it.
Why do you want to keep a dog if you cant treat him properly.Anyways it cannot stop him from barking all night.
No. A muzzle will only stop your dog from biting. A correctly fitted muzzle will not stop your dog from drinking, eating or -barking-
You could try a citronella spray that is fitted to the collar and is activated by the dog’s bark. It works on some dogs.
Everyone keeps saying this is cruel…. I can’t say that it is or it isn’t with out more information….
If you leave it on your dog so tight they can’t open their mouths THAT is CRUEL!!!
And muzzling the animal just to stop the barking all night is cruel as well.
I personally use a muzzle with one of my two dogs, because it is the only thing that calms my overly hyper active dog down. But it’s never left on him for long periods of time.
Muzzles will not stop barking!!!! I have talked to many trainers and the local Humane Society about barking and they recommend doggie obedience classes for training classes, or bark collars for extreme cases.
Also have you ever considered crate training your dog? Then you could leave the dog safely indoors at night and that may stop the barking!
After reading your UPDATE:
Have you tried crate training the dog? Sometimes it provides a safe feeling for the dog, and it is generally better to leave the crate covered so the dog can not see outside of it.
No. Spend your $ on a citronella bark collar or an ultrasonic bark deterrent such as a PetSafe bark control unit or one of these
http://www.ultimatebarkcontrol.com/
Also, do you know if he is barking at noises from outside? You could try playing a sound machine set to white noise, to mask other noise. Crate training is a good idea too; when the dog is put in his crate for the night he may be more focused on his own little “den” and not every noise he hears.
Is he neutered? If not, the problem might be that he simply has the urge to find a female.
Muzzling is not the answer. He will merely damage himself, till he pulls the muzzle off and the cycle will start again. Have you tried a different kind of bed with fresh linen. Maybe pillows with soothing herbs. Perhaps he needs valerian in his water for a while, but obviously something is bothering him. He sleeps inside, in your room? Provide a nice bed which is off the ground or maybe a comfy quilt and wash the covers regularly.
I take it, you talk to him, regularly and massage his body, to check for any irregularities? Maybe some warm milk or porridge before going to bed? It may sound silly, but little human habits can make a change and his body will tell him, when he’s had enough. So, do not worry, it is not addictive.
Remarkable problem. Good luck.
Muzzling equates to first aid with animals. It appears that someone has trained their master…
Sounds like this dog needs attention and obedience training? Or neutering/spaying? Or a companion animal?
Crate training might help. Try putting the dog in a crate for bedtime. Roll up a newspaper and when the dog cries, whimpers, barks, makes any sound you hit the crate with the paper and say “NO”, at the same time. Then, walk away. If the dog does it again, repeat, walk away and don’t talk to the dog or say anything else. The force of your voice compounded with noise of paper leaves a lasting impression.
It took three long nights, but my dog finally caught on to what was acceptable behavior. Eventually, I didn’t lock his crate when he went to bed, we only shut the door.
Try a shock collar….My dog used to do this….after a couple of zaps….he got the picture. Hes a good boy now.
i have tried shock collars, a can with marbles in it that u shake next to their heads and alot of things to cease the barking and most of them don’t work. after reading dog books i tried holding their snouts everythime the barking starts and saying a firm no over and over and then giveing a good blow up the nostrils and it works with continual training and catching them barking.even my daughters old agressive lab who is quite mean listens to me and settled right down after doing this to her when someone was around. my kids were quite amazed by this simple measure. just hold the dogs snout firmly and repeat the no until he calms down. by blowing and holding the nose he will learn to stop barking. a muzzel is ok if he wants to bite or shows agression but working with him and making him listen is much better. give it a try and good luck
You’ve tried a lot of things. What I notice you haven’t tried, however, is training.
There are a few ways you can take care of the problem. First is to train the dog to pick something up with its mouth on command. Once that is trained, you can ask for that behavior any time it barks. You have just trained a behavior that is incompatible with the undesirable behavior. This, however, is not particularly useful if you are trying to sleep.
The second is to train the dog to bark on command. It barks already; it should be a piece of cake to make it happen on command. Then, you have to make sure to only reward the dog if you ask for the behavior. That will make him bark less and less because it is more rewarding to wait for you to ask for the behavior. Make sure at first that you ask for it a lot. Once the command is securely set, you can start asking for the behavior less and less often. Then, finally, you can cease asking for it altogether. This is called extinguishing a behavior.
It can work really well, but you have to make absolutely certain that neither you nor anyone else in your house gives any reaction whatsoever to him barking without the command. In fact, you should be doing this already. Right now, when he barks, you probably yell, or pay attention to him, and you get up and run around the house, etc., etc. This is rewarding to him because he has, in effect, controlled you, and makes him perform the behavior more often. One of the best training tools (and the hardest to do) is to ignore behavior you don’t want, while rewarding only the behavior you do want.
A third method is to train a Quiet command. This is much harder, but will last longer in the long run. When the dog is barking, just stand there looking at him. The moment he closes his mouth, click and reward. Pretty soon, you can start making him close his mouth for one second, then two, then five, then thirty, and on and on up to minutes at a time. Make sure that the reward for being quiet is HUGE. It needs to be much more rewarding than barking. Eventually, you can add the command “Quiet” by clicking and rewarding, and then saying “Quiet.” Eventually, you can just say “Quiet” (in a quiet, firm voice — no yelling), and he’ll close his mouth. Reward that!
Once he knows the behavior and responds to it consistently, you should start varying when he gets a treat, and make sure it’s random. Sometimes he’ll get a treat for doing the behavior, and sometimes he won’t. Guess what? He’ll actually try harder to do the behavior right! This is priming him for when he’s going to have to be quiet all night with just one command. After a couple of weeks of that, start trying it out at night. As soon as he starts barking, give the command. He probably won’t last all the night the first few times, but if you treat him sometimes, and sometimes don’t, he’ll get better and better at it.
I hope you try training, and I hope you have fun doing it.