How do I train my dog not to bark when I leave the house?


Two year old spayed Cavalier. Otherwise reasonably well behaved.


Thanks for any advice, David

 

I think it will depend on why she is barking:

Does she do it constantly as soon as you leave the house, or only when she hears/sees something?

 

It needs it's attention focussed on something else as you leave so it's not even noticing you leave. Whether that is a new toy or some sort of activity around food and sniffing it out might be a start but down to what the dog finds stimulating.

 

sounds like separation anxiety. Try brain teaser toys that hide treats in. Something that is mentally stimulating. try it out by following your normal routine when you go out but give the dog the toy and walk out as if you were leaving see how it goes

 

Put a call out to Spoon. He seems to know what's what with dog training

 

Thanks chaps. I think it is an anxiety and bond between dog and carer, my daughter, is very strong. Dog will sense immediately if my daughter is going out and barking starts. So it's going to be a struggle to stop this but I agree that a distraction of some kind is a good starting point.


David


Haven't seen hide nor hair of Spoon for a while?

 

Had this many years ago with a weimaraner, was advised to reward the dog on return and start with short periods of time away from the dog and gradually increase the duration. Once the dog gets that the pack leader is coming back it is happy enough when he leaves. Sounds easy, but takes patience and persistence to break old habits.

 

Thanks. Google found me a trainer in Bristol where my daughter lives who looked ideal. My daughter phoned and woman wanted £60/hour. Bloody rip off Britain. David

 

If she's barking before even leaving the I think first you need to train a command or gesture to be quiet ( with rolly its my palm out and saying "shhh" - he tends to respond better to visual commands; I suspect his hearing is iffy as he has had ear infections in the past).

Then after that it needs to be combined with the separation training; Get her quiet and settled, and leave for a short moment, reward on return, then increase the duration after every success. It's not easy and some dogs pick up on it quickly, some don't.

My uncle is currently having to deal with a rehomed boxer that tears plaster off the walls when left alone!!!

 

Tell her to take it to the dog pound and get another dog, problem solved.

 

Did you think of that all on your own? Wow

 

Always hide treats for our 2 se when we go out and they just curl up when they have found them but when we got the younger one we had to train him all over again so we used a shaker..........went out the door, Dog barked, straight back in shook the shaker - it made a noise and with a firm no.......did this a few times and it stopped............now we can go out and no barking dogs even when the neighbours has theirs barking (other neighbours say they never hear anything form our 2)

 

Hope this is not a stupid question but what is a shaker? Tin with treats in?


David

 

And you implied I was thick.

Sorry only joking.

My tuppence worth.

Water spray from one of those bottles with the cap that you pull up to drink and a firm no is my suggestion, I have never used it but it's something I have seen used for barking dogs, giving treats could lead to the dog acting up to receive said treats, by coming back in and rewarding the dog when it stops barking you're effectively encouraging the behaviour, it needs to be an un-pleasant experience and a squirt of water and the sound of her dis-pleased voice, which represents angry bark / growl in dog speak should do the trick.

She also needs to make a little less fuss of the dog upon return.

Take it out for a good run about in the morning and a decent feed upon return, before she goes to work, tired dogs with full stomachs go to sleep.

I'd also never leave treats around the house for a dog to find, my Cane Corso would tear the place apart looking for more treats, no matter how much I give him he wants more. I also don't think it's a good thing to to give treats for him behaving as he should, a simple good boy in a gentle tone, with maybe a pat on the head should suffice.

At the end of the day she needs to train herself to understand why dogs do the things they do and adjust her behaviour accordingly, they're not like humans, perhaps a little light reading on her part would pay some dividends.

I use a combination of techniques dependant on the dog and what it responds to, also what the dog is for plays a part, but this needs to start from it being a pup otherwise you'll always be reacting and playing catch up, but as above it's more about training / learning for oneself than the dog.

 

Plastic water bottle with a few little stones in the bottom......makes a noise when shook....some people don't like it but it is effective....

 

These aren't by any chance people that don't understand how dogs work by any chance?

 

They can work for other things, like gaining a dog's attention (much like clicker training). But for separation conditions it needs a different tact.

Using treats has to be done carefully; it must be done in a way the dog isn't being rewarded for bad behaviour (i.e its barking, so give it a treat/toy to keep it quiet = not good).

 

Leaving a conversation-biased radio programme on in the house will help. Will trick the dog into thinking it has company. We do this up at the kennels my missus works at. Our only choice is Radio 4 as reception is naff around here, but it does the trick.

 

Clearly my suggestion is being misinterpreted/misunderstood - it's nothing to with rewarding bad behaviour. The idea is to gain the dogs attention well before any bad behaviour starts i.e. it's distracting the dog before leaving the house so it doesn't start barking in the first place.

 

Why oh why do people have to die because mongs need to own powerful carnivores?

http://rtlec.co.uk/man-jailed-after-...killed-granny/

 

Because the owners are losers and know f,uck all about dogs.


Cavaliers, BTW, do not kill people but I still wouldn't leave one alone with a baby.


David

 

Well you only have to look at the bloke to see he's some sort of inbred mongrel. Already banned from owning a dog, so his grandmother lets him keep one at her house, obviously the inbreeding started a few generations back because she was obviously not too bright either.

These sort of people do themselves no favours.

Any dog can be a danger, even more so when in the hands of retards.

I think there should be some minimum training requirement for dogs and owners, far too many people have these animals in their homes, yet have next to zero understanding of the workings of a dogs mind.

Even then there are still no guarantees with any dog, my own personal experience is testament to that, after rigorous training and numerous certificates / levels passed, over 3yrs of constant professional and personal training, one of my own Jack Russells went for my son, but obviously I was right there because I'd never leave them alone together.

Dogs should under no circumstances be left with the vulnerable, they are pack animals descended from wolves and have a totally different structure to human beings, as such they will take an opportunity to raise themselves within their pack as and when it presents itself, the old girl was probably fighting back so the dog continued to submission. Which again shows a lack of understanding on her part.

Nothing to do with the dog being a bad dog, but all to do with the dog just being a dog in the care and control of people that don't understand them.

 

I hate to burst your bubble (and I used to think this myself up until very recently) but the myth that is pack theory has now been categorically proven to be wrong.


Dogs and wolves are so distant that we cannot assume that they act similarly to each other, and the early studies of wolves forced to live together that gave rise to the original "pack theory" of dominance, submission and hierarchy have now been disproven by the same scientists who conducted those original studies.


'Packs' in the true sense of the word do not exist among groups of unrelated domestic dogs. True familial pack is mother, father and offspring and functions non-violently with submission being freely given rather than forced.


And importantly dogs know we are not dogs, so there is no point trying to be their pack leader.


I'd brought up several Rottweiler's believing this, but what was actually happening was that their (wanted and agreeable) behaviour was not because they saw me as their "leader" but because they were simply doing what was asked of them through positive training.


To the OP - whilst water sprays and rattle cans do work, you are simply suppressing the unwanted behaviour (masking the symptoms) rather than addressing the root cause to prevent the dog behaving that way in the first place. Your dog appears to have separation anxiety (although it may be boredom), and you need to work to address that. In short you are not looking to train her not to bark. You need to work to let her understand there is nothing to bark about when you leave.


There are plenty of good resources out there but this is good advice below - shamelessly cut and pasted


A well-structured change in routine may break the cycle of anxiety if practiced carefully and consistently.


· Sleep alone. If you sleep with your dog in your bed -- stop. Snuggle together in bed if you like but when it’s time to sleep, have your dog sleep in her own bed.
· Make your arrivals home boring. Deliver your greeting after your dog has calmed down.

· Stimulate your dog. Leave "home-alone only" favorite chew items and long-lasting food toys within a “dog zone”. Provide a view of the great outdoors. Your dog could be suffering from a condition that is often mistaken for separation anxiety – boredom!
· Practice frequent separations. Start small and build confidence slowly and incrementally. Practice "sit/wait" and "down/wait" while you leave the room for just a moment. Keep your dog on the other side of a closed door inside the home for short periods each day.
· Provide a comfort item. Leave your dog with a worn article of your clothing, such as a sweaty T-shirt.
· Desensitize triggers. Turn triggers -- putting on your coat, picking up a purse or briefcase, and jangling keys into neutral events for your dog by preparing to leave but don't leave the house. In time, the triggers will lose their power to generate fear.
· Don’t punish. It won’t help but it will make an already anxiety-stricken dog even more insecure.

 

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but the fact that you're willing to believe a group of people that thought they got it right once, then decided they got it wrong that time and now they've got it right again, well as you can guess, I'm sat here laughing as I type this.

Any how let's not fall out as we all have our own experiences and opinions, it's good that we share them and hopefully be of some help to others.

I have spent my whole life with dogs and I'm 49 now and never been without one, regardless of what the latest study says, I'm pretty sure that there is a pack mentality in dogs, how intellectuals chose to interpret that amongst themselves is entirely up to them, I'll stick with what I have witnessed with my own eyes over my lifetime.

I disagree with the comment about them not being like wolves though, just because man has bred desirable characteristics doesn't make them less of a wolf it just makes them look less like one.

 

I agree with you on this having lived my whole life with dogs in my life too. These scientists as usual go on theory and lab tests as opposed to the real World. How about they go and look at the packs of dogs in South American cities where there is an undoubted pack structure. These are pets who are let out by their owners in the morning and return home at night but during the day are left to their own devices to roam around in self formed packs. There was a TV program on about it a while back and I found it fascinating.

Scientific theory is nothing when there are real World examples to prove it simply wrong.

 

Thank you Devildog, and others, your helpful advice is appreciated. David

 

The worst thing I did was to install webcams at home and to check them from work.
Max would howl all day when on his own, apart from potentially annoying the neighbours, it upset me that he was clearly in distress.

He was castrated early on so that wasn't a cause or solution.
He has been far far better since we secured the back garden properly, it may have been that other animals were getting onto his "Territory" and the lack of human contact that upset him.

He's 8 years old now. Patterdale/Jack cross.

We also bought a great little gadget that he has to manipulate with his nose / paw to get biscuits. Boredom kills humans, why not dogs.