BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Dogs Any Barkers?

My 5 year old German Shepherd is driving me crazy with barking in the house lately. I have to keep the blinds closed or she have a barking fit on whoever and whatever goes by. Any suggestions?

I have 2 barkers. Normally we keep it fairly under control with rewards for stopping when told to stop.

Since we got new neighbors who have 2 dogs and 2 horses about a week ago, my dogs think they must bark every time they hear a noise from over there. They just seem to think they MUST let everyone know that this was their neighborhood first. The only thing that helps is just letting them outside to run off their energy. They run back and forth barking for a few minutes and when they come back in, we have a quiet house for a few hours. (We have a fenced yard and live out in the country. The houses are far enough apart that noise from someone else's yard can barely be heard by anyone inside - except by the dogs.)

My only suggestion would be giving a treat when you tell her to stop and she does, or taking her outside for exercise to help calm her down.

I take my dog to training classes her in th eUK and we have a number of dogs who are barkers including my own at certain triggers - mainly dogs outside his car!! One of the things that seems to be advised is some sort of diversion them reward for being quiet ie when the dog starts to bark, squeak a toy or make a noise to snap their attention back to you then reward them either with the toy or a treat only when the dog is quiet. After several goes of this you can add the word quiet at the appropriate time and hopefully this will break the cycle.

Worse case you can get spray cans of compressed air that make a loudish noise that the dog finds harder to ignore. I have this for my dog and I have only had used it a couple of time and now I can just show him the can and say 'Mac quiet' in a stern voice and he usually shuts up.

I hope this gives you some ideas. It might not be a quick fix but with a bit of work it will hopefully stop or reduce it.

Our Cairn terrier is a barker. She thinks she's guarding her house and yard, People in the yards around us can't enjoy their own yard without her barking at them. She runs up to the privacy fence and peers thru the slats. Sometimes I keep her leash on her to pull her back in she is relentless. This is this type of dog's personality but it gets old.

IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY I WOULD SUGGEST THE TRAINING COLLAR THAT YOU CONTROL.IT IS ABOUT 150 -250 DOLLARS DEPENDING ON THE RAGE YOU WILL GET.IT WORKS VERY WELL BECAUSE IT HAS A WARNING BUTTON.SO WHEN YOU GIVE THE COMMAND NO BARKING AND THE DOG CONTINUES YOU WARN THE DOG WITH THE BEEP FIRST.IF THE DOG CONTINUES AGAIN SAY NO BARKING IF SHE CONTINUES YOU PRESS THE BUTTON THAT SENDS A SHOCK WAVE TO THE DOG TO CORRECT BAD BEHAVIOR.

One of my 3 dogs is a barker and unfortunately this means that she doesn't get to spend as much time outside as the other 2 do.

I'm just trying something new this year. I got some heavy canvas banners and have fastened them to the fence on one side of the yard so they can't see through to the neighbour's yard or to the public sidewalk on the other side of this neighbour's yard. The fence on the other side of the yard and across the back doesn't have much room for them to see through & they don't bark except when they can see through the fence on the one side.

I'm sure it will work for the 2 dogs that don't bark much and I really hope it will work for the one problem barker.

I've thought about using a shock collar for her, but I've heard the dog quickly learns that she can bark as much as she likes when the collar isn't on. Since my dogs don't wear collars (due to the chance of accident), I can't use that for a permanent solution.

Callie, my cockapoo, was trained as a puppy to bark when she needed to go outside. I adopted her when she was eight years old, and she is driving me bonkers with this barking "thing". Her timing is absolutely the worst in the world. I try to let her out when I let Buster (beagle mix) out, but she doesn't always want to go. And she's not satisfied with just one bark. It is continuous until you go let her out. Then a millisecond later she's back at the door barking to come back in...

The training collar worked for me.But nowadays she has phobia each time I put her on a normal leash or anything at all around her neck.

http://petewpfong.typepad.com/xmasgifts4mydog/

I refuse to try the training collar. I don't like hurting our dog. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Our dog barks whenever there's someone coming near our home and it takes a while for her to keep quiet. We do two things: we either distract her from the newcomer by playing with her or giving her food, or we just leave her alone...<img src="/images/graemlins/rolling.gif" alt="" />

You might consider placing a few coins or small rocks inside of an empty aluminum can, seal the top with duct tape and ONLY throw it at your dog - AND intentially hit the dog with the noisy shaker can to deter the worst of the worse behavior. If that can is shaken randomly, it will be desentitized to the sound. The objective is to scare the unacceptable behavior out of the doggie while caught in the act. The dog's brain will connect the behavior with something (hopefully the can remains unseen from the dog) that scared the dog to behave and not do what is not acceptable.

I have used no-bark collars ($40.00 U.S.+/-)with good success on older doggies. The juvenile doggies will not stop barking...they do not get it that the barking noise activates the zing of the collar. I used it once on my male juvenile chocolate lab and immediately removed it. The plus side is I only have to show it to him and he stops his social barking.