Barking... at everything and nothing!

C

CharlieBrown

Forums Regular
So little Lucy wont stop barking.. she sits at the front window and barks at every little noise or thing that movies.

She even barks at the neighbors hanging out their washing!

Its getting outta control and we don't know what to do. Our other sheltie Charlie is so quite and every time Lucy barks her head off he comes running to us scared...

now even on walks if we see another person she starts barking...

and the weird thing is that her breeder played those noise CDs and we have socialized her well but its just getting worse!

Please help!
 
Is Lucy a Sheltie?:hide

Shelties gonna bark ma'am. One of mine barks a little, one barks A LOT. Sounds like you have a barker, get used to it! I try to remind myself it's a joyful noise but last week the neighbor got an earful of me shouting 'shut up' as I leashed my two for their walkies. She was smiling as I offered them for sale, cheap, but didn't buy. I think if I ever need a hearing aid it's going to be due to them :lol:
 
Lucy is my second sheltie and is 8 months old. Our other sheltie Charlie like never barks unless someone comes to ring the doorbell
 
We had a similar issue with Shelby. She would sit and look out the window just waiting for a reason to bark. We tried closing the curtains but she would just push them to the side. So we saved up and had shutters put on the windows. It has made a world of a difference! We keep the bottom half of the shutters closed all the time so she is no longer even interested in trying to look out the windows. The shutters also help block a lot of the outside noises that also would make her bark.

I know how frustrating it can be since Shelby barks a lot more than Hollie did. Plus Hollie was such a people pleaser she would shut up as soon as you told her. Shelby on the other hand can care less if you are mad at her.

Once we were able to understand what Shelby's different barks meant it became easier for us to divert her attention and re focus her onto something else. There are a lot of times I will take her outside when he neighbor kids are playing ball (this makes her go crazy excited). But I always have a few treats and make sure Shelby knows this. I then work on telling her to be quiet and reward her with a treat for behaving. Thankfully my neighbors are very supportive of me doing this. And her behavior has gotten much better. Try lots of treats and reward for being quiet.

With consistency it will get better.
 
Indy barks at squirrels, he barks at hair dyers, he barks at the mail man. He just barks. He goes crazy over lawn mowers, and attacks! I mostly now just ignore him. He only seems to do it when I'm in the house to let me know that there is stuff going on....

Callan has not found his bark yet, and I hope he does not learn from Indy.:rolleyes2:

Barking, however, is normal behaviour for Shelties. It is possible but very difficult to control because it is their nature to "alert".

There are a variety of techniques to teach this.

The most effective I've found with Indy is:

Pointing two fingers towards his head (sometimes I touch behind his ear), stamping my foot and saying "Aaaaahhhh" loudly. It's all about getting his attention redirected to ME.

If he is in the backyard and going crazy over a squirrel or other dog, that's the worst. Again, I have to remind him of puppy 101....I call your name, and you look to me. Then come for a treat. Treat, praise, reward. I have to give this about a 40% success. Usually by the time I can get to Indy, the danger has already passed. But if I can get him before he goes full out,, then I can control him 90% of the time.
 
Shelties are barkers as people have said, however being such a talky dog breed this trait may be made worse by something such as anxiety or boredom.

The first two questions that come into my mind are what is the exercise routine? How long are the walks and how often a week?

You say the breeder socialised your sheltie well, what age was she when you got her? Did you continue on the socialisation process after you brought her into your home?
 
At 8mths old your pup is an adolescent, she is probably high drive - so excited by movement, creating a job for herself and getting attention (even it it's bad) all at the same time - so heck, why wouldn't she bark! Your problem is a common one on the forum amongst adolescents.

If you don't want this to be a lifelong thing you need to stop her having the opportunity to bark. So the window, and any other window she barks at, needs to be blocked. Put a chair in front of the window or put something across at sheltie eye-height.

If she's barking in the yard only let her outside supervised.

Leave a collar on her and as soon as she barks the lead gets put on and she gets led away from what she's barking at. Don't say anything but a 'no'. Not only is it likely to be 'white noise' that she'll just learn to ignore, but also you are giving her attention. At that age even being yelled at is attention and therefore a reward. When you lead her away put her in 'time out'. So somewhere with no distractions where she can calm down. And if she goes back to barking then she goes back into time out.

Have a search here for NILIF, it's a great program (done correctly) for adolescent dogs where they have to earn privileges. It's a good method for teaching self control.

As mentioned, she may need more exercise and stimulation. In the latter case use mealtime as an opportunity to stimulate her. All dried food should be given by treat dispenser (there's been several threads with recommendations). For moist food use a Kong. Make her work for her food, dogs love it and it will give her a 'job' other than supervising the neighbourhood.

With the barking at other dogs on walks. There are quite a lot of threads on this behaviour so do a search (I won't repeat what I've said there because it will be too long).

Finally, don't compare her to Charlie. Shelties bark a lot more in multiples so unfortunately that's something that will happen. Lucy is young, prob high drive, and the second dog so she's more likely to be barky. It can be reduced though but you need to be really strict about it and nip it in the bud now.
 
This is actually really helpful for curbing my adolescent's barking as well.

For me, not only does my adolescent bark at stuff outside windows, and sometimes at people, he also barks at other dogs too. Unfortunately, this makes it very hard for him to meet other dogs, he scares a lot of other dogs away! Even on our walks, if he sees a crow or a squirrel or a dog on the other side of the street he would go crazy and non-stop bark. Anyone else have this issue too?
 
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