Know What Your Dog Is Saying.

One of the great things about your relationship with your dog is their abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate with you. Just as we can form sen­tences and change the pitch of our voice to mean dif­fer­ent things, your dog too can change her bark de­pend­ing on what she's try­ing to tell you.

K9 Mag­a­zine re­cently de­scribed the Top 10 Barks and what they mean. You’ll find a summary below and if you would like to read the article you can do so at the following link : http://www.k9magazine.com/why-do-dogs-bark-10-dog-barks-translated/

1. Con­tin­u­ous rapid bark­ing at a mid-range pitch:
“Call the pack! There is a po­ten­tial prob­lem! Some­one is com­ing into our ter­ri­tory!”

2. Bark­ing in rapid strings with a few pauses at a mid-range pitch:
“I sus­pect that there may be a prob­lem or an in­truder near our ter­ri­tory. I think that the leader of the pack should look into it.”

3. Pro­longed or in­ces­sant bark­ing, with mod­er­ate to long in­ter­vals be­tween each ut­ter­ance:
“Is there any­body there? I’m lonely and need com­pan­ion­ship.”
May also possibly mean “I need a treat. Please give me a Bully Stick.”

4. One or two sharp short barks at a mid-range pitch:
“Hello there!”
May also be interpreted as “Hey. Hey you. How about giving me a Yak Chew?”

5. Sin­gle sharp short bark at a lower mid-range pitch:
“Stop that!”

6. Sin­gle sharp short bark at a higher mid-range:
“What’s this?” or “Huh?” This is a star­tled or sur­prised sound. If it's re­peated two or three times, its mean­ing changes to, “Come look at this!” to alert the pack to a new event.

7. Sin­gle yelp or very short high-pitched bark:
“Ouch!” This is in re­sponse to a sud­den, un­ex­pected pain.

8. Se­ries of yelps:
“I’m hurt­ing!” “I’m re­ally scared” This is in re­sponse to se­vere fear and pain.

9. Stut­ter-bark at a mid-range pitch:
If a dog’s bark were spelled “ruff,” the stut­ter-bark would be spelled “ar-ruff.” It means “Let’s play!” and is used to ini­ti­ate play­ing be­hav­ior.

10. Ris­ing bark – al­most a yelp, though not quite that high:
Used dur­ing a rough-and-tough tum­ble play time, it means “This is fun!”
Can also sometimes mean “Awesome. Thanks for giving me those Beef Tendon Bites!”

Some dogs can bark too much. While there are sev­eral op­tions for help­ing con­trol your dog's chat­ter, ex­er­cise and lots of play­time will wear your dog out, and she will talk less as a re­sult.

Which bark do you hear from your dog most often?