Barking

[dinahprincedaly]

There is a guy at off leash with a big playful dog that has a very loud insistent bark and the guy gets embarrassed about it. The dog is quiet at home, just not in the park. He keeps saying he's going to get one of those collars to zap him. I've been talking him out of it. The dog is just excited to be out there and wants to play, someone THROW THE

Comments

[biggmellon]

I'm a big fan of not barking

[dinahprincedaly]

Thanks I will tell him--this is good. I think it will help. I'll try to impress on him that only if he's consistent will it work.

With Stella, she barks and we get her to sit quietly right away and sometimes also ask her to do a trick and on release she often starts barking right away again. With such delight. Which makes me think she feels we were also rewarding her bark... :/

[biggmellon]

Yeah, especially barking at stuff in the world: that sit, distract with tricks buys you an interruption but not a total fix, especially if they are barking at what they consider something. It works best with demand barking because basically you are trying to get them to prompt what they want with that other behavior instead of the bark which we have better control of than the environmental stuff. That anxiety "omg that! And that! Omg did you hear that" barking is not easy to fix. I'll let you know if I figure it out with this new client that has taken it to all new levels!

[dinahprincedaly]

Good luck with the new levels :/

[talesofmyboys]

What? I can't hear you, Merc is barking. :-)