How to Control Dog
 Barking at Doorbell

Dogs who go into overload whenever they hear the doorbell must get some help getting over this before you can expect them to be quiet. The ring of the doorbell could be your dog's antecedent to barking, and it might be difficult for him to control. A lot of dogs with this problem literally explode into barking and it takes a quite few minutes for them to calm down. One of the best ways of taming this behavior is to teach him to respond differently when the doorbell rings. The easiest way is by overloading the dog with the doorbell sound when no body is there so that the dog eventually learns that the doorbell ringing isn't necessarily what he thinks. He will start to associate this sound with something other than his initial thought.

You could also include some classical conditioning to change his opinion about the doorbell. This consists of developing different associations between a noise and an object; in this case it would be the doorbell and then something he likes, something good, like a snack or a game. In order to do this, ring the door bell and then give him lots of treats or start playing with him whether he is barking or not. In this case, as contrary to operant conditioning or other types of training, we are not obligating the dog to do something before he gets a reward. To someone new at training a dog this may seem that we are rewarding the dog regardless of his behavior. Actually, we are creating an association between the doorbell and something good or positive so that eventually instead of barking the dog expects something else such as a game, or a treat. This is a very good way in trying to change how your dog associates doorbells. Try using this method to help solve this barking problem and it might help solve it quicker than other ways.

Dogs who bark for attention