I have a dog, Lucy, who is wonderful.
We live in an apartment building. She rarely barked (not never, just not often). But one of her triggers was a lot of noise in the apartment hallway. As this was infrequent (it’s a pretty quiet building), this wasn’t an issue.
But a new dog moved in down the hall, and the new dog’s tags jingle, and when Lucy hears that sound, she (Lucy) starts barking. (To be clear, this is not excessive noise. I wouldn’t notice it at all if it weren’t accompanied by Lucy’s barking). And the new dog and owner go in and out of their apartment fairly often.
She’s not aggressive; she doesn’t mind the other dog at all when we meet out in the hallway, even right outside the front door. It’s just when she hears him go by. Is there a good way to train her to stop barking at this? I’ve tried to search and much of the advice is irrelevant (e.g., put them in a room where they can’t see anything to bark at. Well, she can’t see it. But she can still hear it.)
I frequently walk my neighborhood and one of my pet peeves involves dogs barking at passerby’s either from inside the home while perched at a window or in a fenced yard. I’ve had four dogs and trained all of them to avoid this. As with any dog training technique, it takes both patience and perseverance.
The outside training begins when first getting a dog but can begin at any time. I would always accompany my dog outside until eventually it saw a passerby or something of interest through the chain kink fence and begin barking. I would approach the dog from behind without it seeing me and give it a firm “No”, startling it. Sometimes the barking is corrected in a week but depending on the dog’s temperament it can be longer and that’s when the perseverance pays off. Inside training is similar.
For your situation in an apartment setting, if repeated voice commands don’t work, try a vibrating (not shock) collar. I prefer the remote activated collar as opposed to the “bark activated” because the latter seems less likely to work as designed in my experience but the choice is yours. With the remote collar, when you dogs first barks, give a firm “No” command immediately followed by a collar vibration. Eventually, this approach should work for you.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but teach your dog to bark on command. If you install an on switch the off switch is easier because the action is now connected with something coming from you, not the outside world.
I also find a general “enough” command is helpful. It is a non-threatening, non-corrective direction that just means “please stop what you are doing.” To teach it you have to say your word AS you distract the dog from whatever it’s doing, and reward with something delicious or more fun. I have a Lab who’s super food motivated, and also toy motivated. If I want to distract and reward her I wave a piece of deli meat under her nose and she’s riveted on me and away from whatever it was. The reward has to be for NOT barking though, and for eyes on you. Timing is everything. Also repetition, so if you neighbor is agreeable you might be able to set up times when they walk down the hall, or they could give you a heads-up that they’ll be going by so you can be ready.
I love dogs and I can’t stand barking, so I hear ya!
The third option is to teach your dog that the sound of jingling tags means they need to do something besides bark. You could have her come find you, or go get a toy, or go to her bed, whatever seems most reasonable in your set-up. For instance, get a set of jingly tags and use it almost like a clicker - jingle, treat, jingle, treat, jingle, treat. Once that’s sunk in, ask her to come to you, as she starts to move jingle the tags, treat when she gets to you (start very close together, gradually expand the distance). Repeat a lot. Soon she’ll think the tags aren’t something to worry about and instead mean fun stuff!
Should be able to teach a command of “hush”, “Quiet”, or “No” - same way you would train out any other undesireable behavior. Can also try the “Thank you” approach.
At times, our dog will bark at squirrels in the backyard. I don’t even know how consistent we are with what we yell at him out the door - could be “You got him”, or maybe “Shut up.” But my inpression is that whatever we say it is sufficient to let him know that we heard him and don’t want him to continue making noise - so he shuts up. Don’t understand folk who let their dogs continue barking outside…
My dog often gets excited (but doesn’t bark) when people come in the house, so I usually put him in a down/stay. After a few minutes he is calm. When your dog barks, call him to you and put him in a sit or down. Give him something else to occupy his mind.
We’ve tried both the very consistent no, the collar, the distraction, sonic responses. For my pup (who is nearing two) the reward of having successfully chased something away and having protected his pack is where its at. And every day the mailman pulls up, and the dog gets exactly what he wants - he barks, the mailman pulls away, and we are all safe from the dangerous mail truck. (But then this dog is sort of a cat about the word no - he responds to positive reinforcement much better than negative reinforcement, but its hard to positively reinforce - which is why training them to bark and then going from there to shush works - sometimes)
For people who aren’t home all day (and we are, so we can be very consistent), there isn’t a good way to be consistent.
For my older dog, we were successful with one exception. The little white dog that walks by is hated with the fire of a thousand suns and MUST be told not to come near his territory.
Even professional trainers will tell you that training a dog not to do something is very difficult - and not always successful. Training a dog to do something else (which is why we distract) might work.
Very often the command “sit” is so well ingrained that it can overcome other behaviors. I couldn’t begin to train my dog not to jump and paw all over people until I began to make him sit before they petted him. After that, he was the calmest lovingest dog around.
So try telling him to “sit” when he barks. Then give him a treat for sitting. With luck, he may start to hear those tags and go straight to a sitting position in front of the treat jar.
We’ve used Quiet Spot brand Neoprene pet tag silencers. They’re like a little bag made of mouse mat material that velcros over the tag. They come in bright colors and would make a lovely gift for a new neighbor.
She’s trying to politely bring it to your attention that properly attentive dog owners take their dogs out for walks at appropriate time, and the appropriate time is NOW! when I could go out there to play with the neighbor’s dog and we could be our own little pack and doesn’t my owner know that dogs are pack animals and why am I being kept inside here like I was a stupid cat?
Your dog may be wanting to meet the new dog and is getting excited to met it . Does your dog get out to play with other dogs and get enough exercise ? I think you should try talking to new dog owner and see if both your dogs could go out together to play . Your dog is most likely trying to tell you she want to go outside too and play .
Thanks for the advice.
I’m going to try with “enough.” Consistency is a problem as there’s just one of me and sometimes its just not possible to get to a treat in time - but the times I have, she’s been appropriately distracted.
She doesn’t really understand other dogs. When we go to the dog park she goes and does her own thing. When other dogs come up to try to play, she looks at them in confusion until they get bored and find a dog that will play them. But she is always up to go for another walk.
