My dog's bark at everything!

Ragazza

I just moved back in with my parents in the country side. I have two dogs and my parents have three. My dogs have taken to barking at everything in sight; each other, the neighbours dogs, birds, clouds, the wind... you get the idea.

The neighbours have not complained yet (we are home eight weeks) but my parents hate it. We let all the dogs out at seven in the morning and we bring them in when it gets dark. We have the radio fence collars on them. (Fantastic system, we are in a sheep area) But they never stop barking.

How do you train adult dogs not to bark? I will not use a barking collar on them.

Please help! All three of us could be homeless!

The Bollox

what the hell are radio fence collars and barking collars?

peasant

Well, your dogs just moved too

They are either frightened by all the new things or feel a need to clearly announce their presence to all and sundry.

Training is what will do it.

Find out first why they are barking ...are they frightened or just showing off or maybe even a mixture of both.

If its fright, it would help them if you familiarise them with their new surroundings. Show them everything in the garden, introduce them to it, show them that there are no dangers ...in other words, calm them down.

If they're just mouthing off ...well, shut them up. If saying "no" doesn't do it, try a squirt gun or spray bottle.

Spend as many hours as you can doing that (basically a whole weekend) and you should see an improvement.

And keep on practising and reinforcing the message.

Is somebody at home during the day? If so, get them involved on the "shut them up" side of the training, so that the dogs will heed their commands as well.

Ragazza

The radio fence is a wire that runs around the boundry of your property. The collar gives the dog a mild shock if it gets too close to the wire. This only happens in the begining. The dog learns very quickly not to get too close to the wire.

A barking collar gives the dog a shock every time it barks.

I will try the above next weekend. My dad is home a lot but he is not a dog person.(Its unfortunate that he lives with five dogs!) I can't see him running around the garden after the dog with a squirty bottle! He believes in the rolled up newspaper but my wolf hound is a rescue dog and was severly and repeatedly beaten with a stick in his last home, so now if a man goes near him with anything that resembles a stick he vomits all over the place for ages!

They bark most when they are excited. (the wolf hound only gets nervous around sticks, otherwise a very happy and secure dog)

peasant

Do they play ball, is the garden big enough to do so?

One of those hard rubber balls (the ones with the holes through) with a rope attached (for ease of throwing and for the dogs to tug on) ..throw that for 10 - 15 mins every day. Let them chase after it, let them squabble over it and chase each other, all five of them ...that'll tire them out so much, they'll be quiet for the rest of the day.

Maybe even your dad would enjoy that ...wouldn't have to do much ...just throw the ball a few times (if he can get it)

The Bollox

Ragazza wrote:

A barking collar gives the dog a shock every time it barks.

I do not agree with this at all. my dog is great, she barks quite a bit, but on;y if something startles her or if someone strange gets close to the house, I mean dogs are great for that. I mean fair enough you may have some extreme cases with dogs barking and you and your neighboursare fed up with it, but even then I wouldn't think of the collar as a primary solution

Ragazza

Thats why I said I would NOT use one.