My dog has different bark for different things so I can usually tell if he telling another dog that everything within three miles of my house is his territory or saying “Hey cbtcad there is a weird guy at the door with a shotgun,” but I still go check to see what he’s barking at no matter what.
Any one else do this or do you just tell 'em to shut up?
Well, if you follow the “Terminator” series, dogs barking means a cyborg is approaching. YMMV
Sorry I’m not more helpful.
Yes.
Dogs (at least the more intelligent ones) have distinctive barks for different meanings.
Listen to your dog.
Peace,
TN*hippie
“If you take in a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” -------Mark Twain
That’s a hard one - at home my family’s had beagles my entire life, and they bark at everyting - a person walking down the road, deer wandering through at night, a person at the door, our sheep, you name it.
I think we would check it out if the dog was in the house, but not necessarily if they were outside. But after neighbor dogs came and attacked our sheep one night, killing several lambs (our dogs had been barking) we paid a lot more attention.
So much of it just depends on what your dog barks at and whether it’s likely to be something as harmless as a deer wandering around (almost always the case at night for ours) or rather an intruder. That said, I think most dogs do have a different bark for a random animal compared to a unknown person.
I generally pay attention to the “warning bark” though most of the time it’s just someone walking a dog outside. But he settles down a lot quicker if I go to the window to check it out then if I just tell him to shut up from another room. I figure he’s trying to tell me, the Alpha Bitch, that something is up, and once I conclude it’s nothing to worry about, he settles usually down.
I don’t pay attention to play-barks he makes at the cats, unless he is being particularly annoying.
If I’m out walking him and he barks at a person we don’t know(who doesn’t have a dog) I definitely pay attention, as he almost never does this.
My dog has the distinctive “Come help me, my tennis ball is stuck behind something and I can’t reach it” bark, “A dog is walking past our house and invading my territory” bark, and “A (squirrel/rabbit/bird/possum/etc) is in MY backyard” bark.
Thankfully, she rarely has to use the “There’s a person approaching the house that I don’t know” gutteral growl/bark that has so far only occured with friends she has yet to meet or meter readers. I have faith that someone skulking around the house at night will be found out well before arriving at a door or window. Of course, the motion sensitive lights will also do the trick.
My Dog has the ‘stuck ball’ bark, ‘stuff going by outside’ bark, ‘someone at the door’ bark and ‘for god’s sake, I need to go do a number 2 right now!!!’ bark.
Unfortunately, it’s usually the two former rather than the two latter… and often very late at night. sigh
The Kallikaks out back have two dogs (a pit bull and a rottweiler—naw, THEY’RE not up to anything!). I have learned to differentiate between barks. They have their “I’m bored/I’m playing/I’m hungry” barks, and they have their “I’m chewing someone to pieces” bark, usually accompanied by a frenzied series of screams. When THAT happens, I look out the window to see if I should offer help (when they’re just chewing on the landlord, I smile benignly on the spectacle).
Like the others, Spot the Wonderpup has different barks for different things. Unfortunately, he reserves his most hysterical bark for when he sees that pesky neighbor cat on the front lawn.
Depends on the dog. My parents’ dog is not much of a barker. So when she sounds off, I know something is up.
My housemate’s horrible dog barks at everything and it’s the same “intruder! intruder!” bark. I have lived in a house with this dog for almost a year and when she sees me she barks and barks and barks and barks. Or when our other housemate comes home. Or when she hears me in the next room. I will be ever so glad to get out of that house.
My dog (Sugarfoot) could watch a 300 pound machete-waving psycho walk right up to my door and I might get a tail wag out of her. Other dogs, on the other hand, send her into a barking, jumping, hair-raising frenzy. Excluding, of course, the neighbor’s dog who is ALWAYS out and comes over at least twice a day to piss on my dog’s head from the other side of the fence. The worst part is that she just stands there looking confused while he does it. I’ve had many the talk with Sugarfoot about self-respect and “appropriate touching” but so far it’s just gone in one ear and out the other…
bella