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We have a new Samoyed puppy, and he's a vocal little guy. I could ignore it if we weren't in an apartment, but he barks. A lot.

It's at it's worst when he sees us leave the room, the house, or wakes up at night and realizes we're not in the room. When this happens I usually just go sleep on the floor near his cage for a while.

I know we can solve the at-night problem permanently by putting him in our room, but I don't think our resident dog is ready for that.

Teaching him "hush" is sort of difficult in this case, as he's only really interested in barking when we're leaving.

So, what is the best deterrent to keep him from barking whenever we try to leave his sight?

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  • Put him in a room where he can't see you, and just keep talking to him. Let him know he's not entirely alone. Other thing I would try is to entertain him with something(toys, treats) and once he's ignoring you, try to leave the room without him noticing. He's just a pup, he'll get used to be alone for certain periods of time.
    – Just Do It
    Sep 17, 2015 at 20:41

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You need to teach him a positive association with you leaving the room. You could try spending some time training him. So:

  1. Simulate the process that makes him bark.
  2. Do not acknowledge his barking ignore him and wait. This is very important. If you go into the room when he barks he will associate this with the barking, so he thinks if I bark, they'll come see me and make a fuss. So if you enter the room while he's barking you're rewarding the wrong behaviour.
  3. As soon as he stops barking enter the room, give him some treats and make a fuss
  4. Repeat

Gradually he should start to associate you leaving the room with being quiet and if he's quiet he'll eventually get a treat. Slowly increase the time you leave him before entering the room again.

Again, slowly start toning down the reward (just make a fuss and no treat 50% of the time, etc) keep working on this (depending on the dog this could take numerous sessions) and eventually you should be able to leave him without him barking.

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  • I’m ben doing this with my puppy (9 weeks female) but she’s doing over and over.
    – Mari
    Feb 2, 2021 at 1:22
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On Japanese TV, I noticed that they were doing this for a similar problem:

Get a toy where he has to struggle to get whatever you put inside. Put a few treats inside the toy or a chewie and leave it in his cage/house when you leave. Repeat this a few times to help him stop barking.

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