I’ve raised and trained many Labrador Retrievers and Labrador barking is fairly common. However, the key is whether or not your approve of your barking Lab.
I’ve been raising guide dog puppies for the past 3 years and during that time not only have I raised two puppies from 7 weeks to over a year old, but I’ve also puppy sat over a dozen Labrador Retrievers. You now might be wondering what the heck is a Guide Dog puppy raiser and what is puppy sitting.
A Guide Dog puppy raiser is responsible for teaching a puppy basic obedience and socialization. We raise our puppies (70% are Labrador Retrievers) from 7 weeks to approximately 18 months of age. Around 18-22 months of age we turn our puppies back in to the program where they go through formal training and learn specific Guide Dog commands and walking with a harness. A Guide Dog puppy sitter is also responsible for basic obedience and socialization, but a puppy sitter usually only has a puppy for a short amount of time from a few days to maybe a month. Puppy sitters basically watch Guide Dog puppies when the full time puppy raiser is on vacation or for some reason can’t care for their puppy.
Now you’re probably wondering what does all this have to do with Labrador barking? I apoligize for the short summary on puppy raising, but I was just trying to present my experience with Labrador Retrievers and puppies…hopefully presenting me as an authority on Labrador barking which I must say I’ve experienced a lot of over the past three years.
Labrador Barking
I wouldn’t consider the Labrador Retriever breed to be a tireless barker…I’ll leave that for the hounds. However, because Labrador Retrievers are the most popular dog in the United States possibly the world the question of how do I get my Labrador to stop barking is very common. So let me tell you a little bit about my experience.
My first experience with an excessive barking lab was my first guide dog puppy. He was a male black Labrador Retriever and little did I know picking up this tiny 7 week old Lab was the beginning of very little sleep for me over the next month. I got the little guy home, played with him, worked on his potty training, let him play with my other dog, introduced him to the entire house, and then introduced him to his crate for bedtime. Our guide dog program requires us to crate train our puppies.
He absolutely hated his crate and for the next four weeks every time I was ready for bed I brought my little labrador to the crate put him inside and out would come the crying, howling, whimpering, barking, and any other unusual dog noise you could think of. This wasn’t the only time he would bark. He also considered riding in the car pure torture. Once again crying, howling, and barking were his usual behavior on our ride to work ever morning…
This article was a little longer than expected and has been broken down into two parts. We will release the second article in the next couple days and include a link when part two is available:
Part II – Solutions to Labrador Barking
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