Puppy growling and doing a "boof" bark at the T.V

[cedric48]

We just got a 8 week old puppy a few days ago. She's a lab, on the smaller side, still shy outside, loves her toys, is relaxed in her crate and loves to plop down for cuddles in our lap. She has also been doing good with training.

Just now I was watching a dog training video that showed a dog jumping and playing with a toy on a rope. It wasn't a loud video, just the trainer demonstrating how to use the toy.

My puppy was chewing her toy on the floor and stopped to watch the T.V. She then growled and did the "boof" bark at the dog and walked into her crate.

What do I do in this situation? She hasn't met any dogs out of her litter yet. Do I just let her be when she reacts to dogs on the T.V ? Is it just because she doesn't know how to interact yet? Or do I discourage her from growling?

 

[wannablikehim63]

@cedric48 Lol my pup still does that at 15 months. It was bad at first, barking loudly and howling. We couldn’t watch anything with dogs, horses, cats, etc. We tried lots of things to break her attention from it. Finally what worked was a loud beep. It jolted her out of her zone. Now, she just does what we call her low yodel talk when she first sees something, then comes to one of us to almost protect us from the bad thing on the TV, and then settles down. It’s adorable actually.

You have to figure out something to break her attention from it and then reward when she doesn’t do it. Almost desensitize her. For us, a loup beep brought our dog out of it. For yours, it may be calling her name loudly, offering a high value treat right away, a toy, etc.

 

[cedric48]

@wannablikehim63 That is pretty cute! Okay, so just redirect her from fixating on what's on TV that's making her anxious. Then reinforce desired behavior. Sounds easy enough. Thank you for sharing!