Sorry for the length.
The background:
We are pet people (three cats, one lizard, two fish tanks) who had a grown dog each as a child but were not necessarily very knowledgeable about the fineities of raising puppies.
A while back we got our first puppy, Duncan, who is now about a year and a half old. He is an adorable but moderately spoiled Dachshund/Australian Cattle Dog mix, whose behavior has much improved in the last nine months or so after some work on our parts and the help of a dog trainer. He took to cage training right away.
We adopted a new puppy in January, Sebastian. We were told he was a beagle mix (they had no idea what he was mixed with, and going by looks alone it’s entirely possible that dad was a purebred beagle too). We were also told that he was six weeks old. Personally, I doubt that. He was tiny, for one, but more than that was his behavior. He spent almost all of his time sleeping, and was very unsteady on his feet when he was awake and playing. And after instantly latching onto me as Mom, he never wanted me to leave his side for a minute. He tried several times to nurse from me. I could be wrong - maybe he was just immature and needy, or Duncan was unusually advanced for his six weeks when we got him.
Whenever we told someone that we had adopted a beagle mix, their first words were to warn us that they were LOUD. Very, very true, we soon discovered. But we expect dogs to bark, so we didn’t consider it a problem.
Now, at almost 6 months old, Sebastian is pretty obedient in general, especially for me. He put Duncan into his place in the pecking order fairly quickly (which actually helped Duncan’s behavior some more, so we gave up fighting it). The order in the house in his mind, and therefore as he tries to enforce it, goes Me -> My Husband -> Sebastian -> Duncan -> the cats. He is getting the hang of potty training at long last, and chewing on the furniture is down though not eliminated.
The problem:
Bark. Bark bark bark bark bark grr arf hoooOOOOooowl!!!
When separated from me while I’m still in the house or immediate area, he barks incessantly, and will not respond to orders to stop (from either of us), or a smack to the butt when we’re feeling particularly desperate. If left in the kitchen while we eat, he barks. (He isn’t trustworthy not to try to steal food from our plates yet.) If I’m in the bedroom folding clothes and he’s left in the living room so that he doesn’t try to steal socks, he barks. We tried cage training him, which was in retrospect an easy process with Duncan, and he barks (though the pet sitter can cage him and he settles down quickly - but he won’t if he knows I’m around somewhere, or even if I’m just outside the crate talking to him). If I take Duncan out into the yard by himself (as he often pees faster that way), Sebastian barks.
We’ve talked to the neighbors, who verified that he doesn’t spend the day barking while I’m not there. (Thank goodness.) However, he’s earsplittingly loud when he gets going - you can hear him on the road halfway down the block, maybe five or six single family houses down the way. And now that the weather is warmer and the windows are open, it will be even louder.
We’ve tried letting him bark himself out. It doesn’t happen. He will, no exaggeration, bark for more than two hours straight without quieting at all. That’s as long as we’ve been able to take trying it.
He will allow me to shower while he’s in the living room, and usually to take an afternoon nap on a weekend day. He’s fine if it’s just my husband at home. So he’s capable of behaving when he wants to, he’s just not willing to be without me when he feels that it’s an option.
Help!!!
We don’t want or demand silence. But being able to hear each other when eating dinner would be a blessing.
(My next move is to get the dog trainer back in if you guys can’t help, by the way.)
(Oh, and he goes in to get fixed next week. Just in case that has anything to do with anything.)
