For any new dog owner, handling all of the loud barking of a new puppy can be quite an unnerving experience. Most new dog owners are not prepared for the intense amount of barking and yelping that young puppies start doing the minute they arrive in their new home. Although it is totally natural, some puppies do not give their owners the luxury of quieting down, especially at night.
One of the biggest phases that a puppy will go through is the fear of being alone. And I'm not talking about being alone in the sense of you leaving the house. Some puppies will go absolutely nuts even when you only leave the room for a split second. They just can't bear to be alone because they are used to having their mommy or littermates around non-stop.
Being stuck in the car during a long drive while your dog is barking nonstop is enough to make anyone crazy. Every moving thing that your dog sees past the window, including cars, people, even still objects like houses, are enough to make your dog respond in a territorial matter which results in excess of barking.
When one object disappears out of your dog's view, another one reappears, and on and on it goes...
Most of us get so annoyed that we result to yelling at our dog in order to get him to quiet down. Unfortunately, this tactic only adds more excitement to your dog's high levels of anxiety. By yelling at him, your dog's mind confirms that you feel the same way and now you have nothing but a loud circus going on while you're trying to concentrate on the road.
All dogs have one form of aggression or another and to some degree, it is perfectly natural. However, since our pets are domesticated then there is a certain level of calmness that we should expect from them. The most common aggression behavioral problem that dogs display is called "territorial aggression". To sum up the definition of territorial aggression, it simply describes a dog that goes absolutely crazy whenever a stranger approaches their home.
What encourages a dog to display such aggressiveness?
As we stated earlier, it is natural for your dog to want to defend his home and make it known that the area is his territory. However, the following scenarios may cause your dog's aggression over his territory to escalate:
