Reducing barking technique thoughts

[drharps]

So I would love thoughts on what i'm doing to reduce my dog's barking. She barks at nearly every noise or visitor that is within 40' of the house (to say nothing of fireworks or loud noises some distance away). My trainer said to ignore her and she would eventually get better, but I've tried that and it simply hasn't work, and my neighbors have actively complained now about the barking. She can't always see the stimuli, noise is sufficient. 

So what I'm doing now is being much more strict with her in every day settings (e.g. making her sit and stay when I make dinner, heel before entering a room, etc.) to try and get her to be more deferential (I feel she got a bit over-confident in her place in the house). Now, when she barks or yelps at a noise, I grab her and drag her into the bedroom and make her stay until she stops - with me standing there watching her until she lays down. I know reacting to her reactions could promote increased reaction by her, but I can't have her barking all day and I'm hoping the 'punishment' and clear sign of disapproval will cause her to mellow. 

I'm also considering a minor e-collar, and have purchased a citronella bark collar. I'm not a fan of either, but it's really to the point if she doesn't shape up in a manner of weeks, I may have to re-home her because the neighbors are pissed, and it's really hard being in the home with her like this. 

Otherwise she's very sweet and obedient - it's really the barking that is a killer (and the escapism, but I think I fixed that).

Thoughts?

[terrecar]

It is possible that your dog’s barking is related to fear/insecurity and a lack of confidence rather than being the outcome of overconfidence. If this is the case, your obvious displeasure and punishment might work in the short term to quiet your dog, but in the long run it is just as likely to exacerbate the problem. If your dog’s barking is predicated on a fearful emotional state, you are less likely to be successful at reducing her barking response if she is further stressed (or left to her own devices, for that matter). You need to attend to the underlying cause (this is of course assuming she is not engaging in boredom barking). 

A better short-term strategy is to distract and redirect your dog, get distance between her and whatever is triggering her barking, but do it without any negative emotion or punishment. Take her to a quiet, comfortable place. Is she crate trained? Does she seem happy in her crate? How about a quiet room? Can you put her there with a stuffed Kong after redirecting her from the barking trigger? Start there. Pay close attention to your dog’s emotional state. That will be the key to deciding what to do henceforth. In the mean time, determine what her triggers are and rate them mentally. Things like fireworks are obvious triggers, but what lower level sounds and activities trigger her?  You will need to work on her comfort level with them.

This is not a dog I would turn out in a yard unsupervised, where she is left to habitually respond to triggers without assistance.  I’d go outside with her, at least for now. There is no quick fix to excessive barking. The most important thing is to determine why she is barking — either boredom, alerting or (most likely) fear.

I am tired, so I hope this makes sense. It is only the first part of what should be a lengthier dialogue.

[terrecar]

I am pasting a strategy I used for barking in one (very specific) situation. It is a reply to another board member that I posted a while back.  It may or may not be of help to you:

Quote

I would not muzzle and tie a reactive dog as a means to correct barking at the fence.  I suspect this would increase barrier frustration, which would only make the underlying emotions that prompt the barking that much worse. You do need to get distance between the dog and the stimuli though.

My entire property is fenced, with the front yard being smaller than the back. I'll explain what I did to solve the problem in one of my dogs while I was in the front yard with her. 

When I first moved into my current home, passers-by would elicit an unacceptable behavior in my dog; she would rush to the fence and bark furiously at them. So, I taught her a "porch" command using positive reinforcement. We made a game of it. Once my dog started going to the porch reliably without distractions, I started asking for a "porch" when there were distractions. This gave my dog a foundation for practicing an alternate behavior when someone walked by, with the added benefit of increasing distance without preventing my dog from seeing what was going on.

During the initial training without distractions, I use "GOOD!" immediately after the dog goes to the porch, then treat. However, you can use a clicker (click and treat) as well. Once my dog had the "porch" command down, I would ask for a "down" on the porch; once that was reliable, a "stay" (both trained in advance, of course). The "stay" became particularly useful for slow moving passers-by.

Once the "porch" behavior was set (learned), I'd ask for it when someone walked by, then follow immediately with a reward for complying. This had the dual benefit of rewarding the dog for going to the porch (operant conditioning value) as well as giving the dog a positive experience (treat) when the stimuli became visible (classical conditioning value).

I should point out that this is not a quick fix. However, it worked for me. My dog rarely barks at people who walk by now, but when she does I can send her to the porch.  She is more reactive to dogs passing by though, so instead of sending her to the porch, I increase the distance even more by asking her "get in the back", meaning to the backyard. The bonus is that my other dogs will invariably follow her to the back.

I realize I haven't dealt with the actual barking yet, but I found it necessary to put distance between dog and trigger first, because that helps calm her emotional state.  I was then able to use a "quiet" command (taught in advance) to get her to stop barking after a few barks. I don't have a problem with a little barking; my goal was to prevent my dog from rushing to the fence while frantically barking.

To deal with the barking, I first had to teach her to quiet herself while she was not reacting to emotionally charged stimuli. Frantic dogs are not thinking, so teaching this required a calm environment. However, I needed her to bark in order to teach her to stop, so I first taught her to bark on command. Then, in order to stop the barking, I taught her "quiet" to stop her while she was barking. Now, if I do have to send her to the porch, I use the sequence: porch/down/quiet/stay.

 

[drharps]

Thanks for the response. I suspect it's fear as she is a very neurotic dog. When she is outside, actually, she is pretty good. If she hasn't been exercised she's of course more reactive, but for the most part she just stares intently at stimuli as they go by.

It's when we're inside that she really loses it. 

Given your response on the second post, my thought is maybe have her go to her crate and reward her when there is a noise. I'm trying to get her to go to the crate anyway when people come to the house so she doesn't jump on them and she's pretty good about doing it. I don't think it'd be hard to do that for every stimulus. 

Thoughts?

Also, somewhat related, is it generally better to exercise a dog in the morning or evening? She is far more active in the evening, and she's generally calm most the day (it's around 4 when she really starts to amp), but I've read a lot of posts of people saying working the dog out first thing was great for keeping her calm all day. (And for the record I realize they need both, but I usually focus more on morning or evening - for instance, she gets a 3-4 mile run most evening as opposed to the morning. 

[drharps]

Let me clarify that last part: she gets exercise in both evening and morning, but I only do one 'big' exercise one or the other. She also gets continual mind work throughout the day with concentrations in morning and evening. But, like I said, there is more of a focus in the evening but a lot of people say morning is better. 

[terrecar]

1 hour ago, drharps said:

Given your response on the second post, my thought is maybe have her go to her crate and reward her when there is a noise. I'm trying to get her to go to the crate anyway when people come to the house so she doesn't jump on them and she's pretty good about doing it. I don't think it'd be hard to do that for every stimulus. 

Thoughts?

Yes, this sounds like a good strategy. You may have to send her to her crate every time initially, but later just giving her something to occupy herself may even work. The goal is to create a distraction in the form of something that takes her mind off of the scary noise and calms her.

[terrecar]

1 hour ago, drharps said:

Let me clarify that last part: she gets exercise in both evening and morning, but I only do one 'big' exercise one or the other. She also gets continual mind work throughout the day with concentrations in morning and evening. But, like I said, there is more of a focus in the evening but a lot of people say morning is better. 

To be honest, I am not sure which period of the day is best for your dog to get the greater part of her daily exercise. Some dogs might do better being exercised more heavily in the morning than evening, it’s true. However, I’m not convinced that will necessarily be the case for every dog. I think the best way to find out is to try both and compare. You can always switch up if one isn’t working. My dogs are ready to roll in the morning, ready to nap in the afternoon, and catching their second wind in the evening. Since the readiness for an afternoon siesta is irrespective of the amount of exercise they’ve engaged in earlier, they do just as well exercising early evening, after which they are ready to sleep.

[drharps]

Thanks Terrecar. Another question: I know citronella and e-collars for barking are frowned upon by most, but I'm curiuos if it's a tool that can be of value to try to get her to not bark while I teach her the activity I want. My concern is - like today - it's going to be a lot of barking before she knows what is needed. A friend came over and I put her in the crate and while I tried to get her down, she was so focused and barking she was really struggling to pay attention to me and was loudly barking the entire time. Those 'freak out' barking moments will enrage already frustrated neighbors. I don't want to do the e-collar route or citronella, but I can't take months to teach her the right activity in a more measured manner. I want to get the barking stopped, and teach her what I want with the buffer that has allowed. But if it's just going to make everything a 1000x more difficult, I don't want to do it. 

[terrecar]

2 hours ago, drharps said:

Thanks Terrecar. Another question: I know citronella and e-collars for barking are frowned upon by most, but I'm curiuos if it's a tool that can be of value to try to get her to not bark while I teach her the activity I want. My concern is - like today - it's going to be a lot of barking before she knows what is needed. A friend came over and I put her in the crate and while I tried to get her down, she was so focused and barking she was really struggling to pay attention to me and was loudly barking the entire time. Those 'freak out' barking moments will enrage already frustrated neighbors. I don't want to do the e-collar route or citronella, but I can't take months to teach her the right activity in a more measured manner. I want to get the barking stopped, and teach her what I want with the buffer that has allowed. But if it's just going to make everything a 1000x more difficult, I don't want to do it. 

I have never used a citronella collar or an e-collar. They are simply not in my toolbox. I would strongly discourage the use of an e-collar. Using an e-collar on a fearful dog is only giving her already uncertain world more uncertainty. You don’t need anything to reinforce her belief that the world is unpredictably unsafe.

The best way to deal with a dog’s trigger, in this case a visitor, is to tackle it while the dog is sub-threshold. Once she begins barking frantically, she is not thinking and therefore likely unreachable. Do you crate her before you answer the door, or after? Have a look at this strategy for visitors: https://www.thewildest.com/dog-behavior/helping-fearful-dogs-handle-visitors

Have you read about “Look at That” (LAT). It is a method of conditioning your dog to first look at a trigger from a safe distance and while still under threshold, then respond to it by looking to you. Here is a link to an explanation in simple terms:  https://themannerlydog.com/look-at-that-for-reactivity/

Here is a link of suggestions by Patricia McConnell explaining how to handle reactive dogs: https://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/how-to-handle-reactive-dogs

 

[terrecar]

Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors

The above link is to an interesting study related to the subject we are discussing. At least you understand that your dog is barking through fear/anxiety. That’s half the battle.

 

[terrecar]

Dr. Harps:

I just thought of something else you might try as a more immediate aid. Disregard if it isn’t feasible for your dog, and of course this is a short-term strategy to buy time.

Sometimes tethering a dog to your person can give them a sense of security, provided that you are a calming influence on the dog. One of my dogs is calmer when she is on a leash (of course this will not work for a leash reactive dog). I have a dog walking belt that allows me to walk my dogs hands free. I’ve not used it in the house, but if I needed to tether a dog to me, that belt would be ideal.

Try tethering the dog to you during times when she is most vocal (but before she loses it) and see if it quiets her. You should find in short order if it doesn’t work, in which case you can untether her. It’s worth a try. 

My thinking with the above suggestion is that, if you’re lucky and it calms her, it will also likely help reduce stress in you! If you are very nervous about your dog barking, that is stress you don’t need, and your dog will likely pick up on it, as well. 

I also think you would benefit greatly from this podcast:  https://dancingheartsdogacademy.com/podcast/ebd180-how-to-help-your-dog-self-regulate/

[D'Elle]

I really like the training techniques that KIKOPUP has on YouTube. She has done three or four of them on barking, and here is one:

 

[terrecar]

41 minutes ago, D'Elle said:

I really like the training techniques that KIKOPUP has on YouTube. She has done three or four of them on barking, and here is one:

 

Excellent use of classical conditioning and very likely useful for this particular dog. Great find, D’elle!