Can bark counter collars and owner surveys help identify factors that relate to nuisance barking? A pilot study

Nuisance barking by the domestic dog refers to excessive or unreasonable barking which is considered annoying or inappropriate by the community. Such barking can be very problematic, with nuisance barking complaints comprising the majority of complaints received by Australian municipal councils, but also signaling a welfare issue with the dog. The aim of this exploratory study was to establish whether there is any relationship between potential predisposing factors and the barking behavior and whether such relationships can be extracted from owner surveys and barking patterns. This study involved 4 Australian municipal councils and used bark counter collars to record the barking behavior of 25 dogs, each reported as being a nuisance barker, over 7 consecutive days. In addition, an owner questionnaire was created to identify factors that may be associated with nuisance barking. Our study shows that barking patterns can be documented using bark counter collars. Four dogs displayed barking patterns which suggested that a specific, regularly occurring stimulus was associated with the nuisance barking. A Spearman rank-order correlation test showed a negative correlation between barking frequency and the amount of obedience training received by the dog and a positive correlation with the number of dogs in neighboring houses. This information may be used by councils and veterinary behaviorists when addressing nuisance barking and provides indications where further research might be productively focused.