Dealing with a barking dog....

[PrincessFiona]

We have a real problem with Moly and I'm not sure how to tackle it. She is a lovely animal and is great with our kids....and the cats! The problem is that she barks at everything....squirrels, kids etc from inside the house. It has gotten really bad this past month because our whole neighborhood is getting their homes resided and reroofed......there are tons of workers out at the homes and she just goes nuts. It seems to have irritated her more. She hasn't barked at our Schwans guy in a couple of years now and suddenly, she is back to barking at him. It has made us all uptight and we have considered going back to the routine of having her on the leash and then walking away (from the door for instance) with her anytime she started barking. We would wait until she settled...then walk her back again. If she barked, we'd just turn around again until she got the idea.

The problem is that now we have 5 children, not 3 and Zoe takes up too much energy for me to be able to also grab the leash and do the training all over again.

Does anyone else have experience with this? It's gotten to a point that we are all yelling at her and I think that is making it much worse. Thomas wants to just go back to the bark collar, but I specifically tossed out the collar and moved on to this method a couple of years back because I thought it was kinder.....I feel like a bark collar is mean...but...yelling at her isn't really very nice either.

kris

[Vanquisher]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

I feel like a bark collar is mean...but...yelling at her isn't really very nice either.

kris

Then, you don't really want to know what I would do. This isn't even in the pet therapy forum (which I am supposed to be banned from, remember?).

[DCJenn]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

I think you should go back to the bark collar if it's a long term thing. If the roofing thing isn't going to last long, then I'd just put up w/ it.

Of course, I'm not home all day when Petey barks at every creature that has the nerve to walk down his sidewalk.

Jenn

[PrincessFiona]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

The bark collar worked before...but I felt really badly about using it because she also had to have the highest correction for it to work. It just seems barbaric to me.

At the same time, the barking is just soooo annoying. A couple of weeks ago, they were doing our neighbor across the street and I nearly lost it a few times with the barking. Now it is our nextdoor neighbor. The kids are yelling at her, Zoe is even yelling at her (without understanding why). That isn't good either.

I did put the leash at the door, but I just don't have the mental energy to consistently do this exercise with her hour after hour after hour right now. I think this is a time-limited problem. I was hoping the roofing stuff would be finished already.....

kris

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

Bark collar. We had one with Bruce. You can get the gradual-increase ones so she gets a warning zap before it's really painful. I remember Michele giving her approval to me for one. She said it's better than the surgery to snip their vocal chords, which is what some people do.

[PrincessFiona]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

I have never understood the idea of debarking. My god...give your animal away befor you resort to that. I feel like my dog is one of my children....and I don't want be yelling at her...and...I also don't want to be shocking her.

I suppose I can wait and see if the barking subsides over the next couple of weeks. I keep thinkin that they are going to stop climbing on everyone's rooves around here!

Kris

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

I am glad this came up, because I've been thinking of getting one of those collars for the dog.

Along similar lines...does anyone have an invisible fence? If you do...is it working? any complaints? did you install it yourself?

[SuzySunshine]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

If you don't like the electric shock of the bark collar they make a lemon cintronella one. That is what we have for our Molly. Her barking has gotten really bad outside (not so much in the house) so she's usually allowed out once/day without it unless she behaves.

The nice thing, IMO, about the cintronella one is that its motion activated - so it won't go off when other dogs bark, just when she barks. It sits on her throat in such a way that the vibration set it off and its sprays a very strong lemon scent in her face. She hates it but it works and until she learns not to bark she has no choice.

When she's in the house we use the squirt bottle approach which also works b/c she hates being wet.

This isn't exactly the one we have for Molly but its close:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...1&N=2001&Nty=1

Heidi (the non-dog hating one) I don't have experience with an invisible fence. We have a beagle and I have no doubt that her nose would lead her right through it. There are a few in our neighborhood that seem to work well, the only bad thing I've heard about the invisible fences is that you can't control dogs coming INTO your yard.

[poky]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

Heidi (the non-dog hating one) I don't have experience with an invisible fence. We have a beagle and I have no doubt that her nose would lead her right through it. There are a few in our neighborhood that seem to work well, the only bad thing I've heard about the invisible fences is that you can't control dogs coming INTO your yard.

No dogs here, but in addition to not controlling other dogs getting in, my fear about invisible fences would be that if something spooked or lured your dog out through it...would she be able to get back in?

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

The women I dogsit for just got one - but I never use it b/c I just take him out on a leash to pee and we go back inside. I do remember them saying they'd initially planned to install it themselves (they're pretty handy) but once they looked into it they decided to pay for it to be installed. Too much work / no guarantee.

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

I agree about the invisible fence for the above reasons. The other issue I have with them, being on the side of the non-invisible fence owner, is that I don't know if someone's dog is on an invisible fence. More importantly, my kids don't know. So when we walk by someone's house and their dog goes ballistic and charges down the driveway to greet/lick/maul us, I don't know the dog is going to stop.

If we get another dog we are going to have to consider this or putting in some sort of fence or dog run. We don't have a fence now and that isn't too much of an issue with our geriatric dog but it will be with a younger one.

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

I use the citronella collar and it works well for my Miss-Behavin Bark-a-lot Daisy Girl. She barks at the wind and it's extremely annoying. She will even dash to the window in the middle of the night and bark psychotically. The noise really bothers me so I had to come up with a solution.

The lemon spray collar is non-toxic and it has a higher success rate than shock collars. There is quite a bit of training and maintenance involved in using it, however.

You have to fill it with the lemon spray regularly and sometimes it gets clogged after a few months. Which means you have to purchase the spray separately and keep several bottles on hand so that you don't run out. Also, the batteries for these contraptions can be hard to find.
Premier, a company that makes these collars will replace it if it stops spraying but you have to mail it in to get another one. The lemon smell throughout the house isn't bad either.
You don't want the dog wearing it if it runs out because then they may learn to "bark it empty". Also, Some dogs are not bothered by getting sprayed in the face and will continue to bark.
Good luck, the noise can be extremely annoying.

I forgot to add: before I got this collar, I hired a great trainer who taught me reward based methods and clicker training to help with Daisy's bad behaviors (and she has many, not just the barking). However, for her, the training in regards to the barking wasn't practical and her instincts were just too strong to overcome. For example the trainer said to have treats ready and when she starts barking, redirect her attention to you with the clicker and the treat. Well that only works when I am right next to her when she starts barking. Yep, not practical. So many times I would be in another room and the barking would be out of control by the time I got to her and I couldn't take the noise.

[PrincessFiona]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

Thanks. After asking this, I gave myself permission to put the collar back on... I don't like yelling at her and it is true that it makes it worse.

She quieted down immediately. I feel badly because I also know that she is just trying to defend her home.....but when the workers are gone, it won't be so bad I hope...and then I can go back to the leash thing.

That works wonders, btw.

Take the dog on the leash to the door (or if they are barking at neighbors in the backyard) or whatever. As soon as they start barking, turn around with them immediately giving them no attention whatsoever and saying nothing....walk the other direction and then stand still until they calm down. Turn around and head back towards the door/people in the yard/whatever until the dog starts barking again....repeat....eventually, they chill out and don't bark anymore.

It worked wonders with her barking at our new neighbors here.....She loved barking at them and now just sits and watches them.

kris

[PrincessFiona]

Re: Dealing with a barking dog....

Well, she is still not barking and she seems to be ok.....she's not acting like she is unhappy about the bark collar.....and the guys are up on the neighbor's roof.



kris