Usually, dogs shows their attention seeking behaviour at their puppyhood age and there is nothing wrong in that unless they cross their limits. Many times, dogs will try to communicate with you by showing some actions by barking at you, it will be perfectly normal. You must know that they are great at learning how to get our attention. The reason that annoying behaviour by him never stops such as barking at us, pawing at our hands, whine etc, is because we often tries to stop his behaviour by yelling at him, and ultimately they gets what he wanted “Attention”. They will do anything to get our attention whether it is positive or negative attention but they wants it as for them, it is better than nothing.
Attention – seeking behaviour can include the following :-
1. Barking
2. Whining
3. Jumping
4. Stealing clothes of you
5. Scratching furnitures
6. Demanding
7. Insists you to rub his belly

There are two types of attention seeking behaviour – Positive and Negative. Dogs love positive attention but when they do not get it, they start doing things like barking to get negative attention. He know that the owner will scold him for this behaviour. For instance, you are talking with someone on telephone and your dog is sitting besides you, first he will do things like laying, sitting, standing etc in order to gain your attention but if it didn’t work then he may do other things to seek the attention like barking or pulling your leg can work. He knows that he will get immediate response by doing this “Bad behaviour”. With time your dog can learn to do these kind of behaviour with maximum affect.

There are many reasons that how these attention seeking behaviour starts but top most reasons are :-
1. Boredom :- When someone feels bored, they’d do something to distract his mind, when our canine friend gets bored, he will try to gain our attention by some of his attention – seeking behaviour. He may wants to indicate something through his behaviour, for instance, if he is insisting for belly rub, this is because he is feeling bored and wants your love and attention.
2. Lack of exercise :- If dog gets enough exercise, he’d be too tired to gain attention all the time, otherwise he’ll become your “Boss” and will demand your attention. The more you delay, the more he will become demanding and obviously no one want a demanding dog.

HOW DO YOU STOP THESE KIND OF BEHAVIOUR?

Most dog owners don’t recognoze this behaviour initially unless it becomes intolerable for them but you are the only one who encourages his behaviour by responding it so you have to deal with it, however solving this problem might takes a lot of time so you have to have some patience.
The best way to solve this problem is ignore him as much as possible. This might be psychologically painful for you and your dog but this is the best solution. You are rewarding his behaviour whenever you respond his behaviour. Do completely ignore him if he is seeking attention somehow, don’t even look at him and try to stay busy in your own work. He might try harder but do not give any attention for his sake, when he calms down, then you can give command to sit and by give rewards too, when he do this. Soon, he will learn that these attentions seeking behaviour are not worth it but if he behaves well, he might get attention as well as rewards.
This idea is not as simple as it looks, most people will get frustrated and annoyed with their dogs and they will mistakenly yell or kick at him, which means you are still encouraging his behaviour. This takes a lot of patience and time but once your dog realises you are not giving him attention by his behaviour, it will all be worth it.
If your dog is trying very harder to gain your attention and is intolerable for you then you can simply take him in the room and locked him up and you can open up when she calms down.
Your dog can also be spoiled if you always give him what he wants. This is one of the thing that encourages in attention – seeking behaviour. If you fulfill his every demand then he will soon realise that he is the boss and knows that you love him so even you do not give him whatever he wants, he will beg you and you might fall into his innocent behaviour. If you do not want this at your house then don’t fulfill his every demand but you should reward him whenever he obeys your command as I said earlier, giving rewards to him for his good behaviour realizes him that if he behaves well, he’ll get good rewards.

The post Attention Seeking Behaviour of Dogs appeared first on Pet Attack.