So Mackenzie has decided recently that after 6:00pm every noise that she hears outside requires her to bark her head off . Anyone have any suggestions on how I can stop this ? anyone have any tricks ?
EBT's have a tendency to be very territorial. When young you can tell by many of them not wanting to leave the house for a long walk. When they grow older it can show by barking at other dogs/ strange people/ unknown noises ... especially at home after dark/ in the evening or when the house is calm. If the dog gets enough exercise in my experience training the dog and staying calm yourself when the dog barks helps best with that. But it can be hard to make this go away for good. I have trained my girl to bark and stop barking on command. This way I can tell her its NOT the noise but HER BARKING that annoys me. But this takes time. And some people hesitate to actually teach their dogs to bark because they are afraid then they will never stop again. I get that hesitation. But I also know that's not going to be the case. It is not about the barking itself but rather about being able to TELL your dog THIS is what upsets you. Often, when trying to stop an untrained barking dog by yelling at it, this even sparks more and louder barking, clearly showing that there's a misunderstanding here. The dog probably rather thinks that the human is kind of barking or yelling at the same thing the dog is "pointing out". After all, when barking the dog does something for the pack: It informs everyone that it saw or heard something it considers threatening to itself, the pack or the home. I once read something interesting from one trainer: She is actually praising her dog for the barking and then tells it to stop (she also taught her dog the bark/stop command). By the praise she is telling her dog "Thanks for alerting me, you did a good job, I heard your warning." Then the stop command tells the dog: "I now know that something's going on. You can stop alerting. I got it from here and will take care of it." This is also why yelling can be so counterproductive because to your dog you seem upset. And if it does not get that it's the barking and not the noise the dog heard is what upset you, it will tend to bark even more in order to scare away the source of the noise. After thinking about what sounded really odd to me in the first place the trainer's argument started to make sense to me and I tried it ... I still do it today.
But in all honesty, I have to say that while I am able to STOP barking in its early stages today, depending on my girl's excitement it can still take one or two times. And I can NOT prevent it completely with my strategy. Because she just gets more alert when it gets dark outside and sometimes she will just bark. Maybe it's someone newly working the night shift and leaving home around 6pm or so causing new noises. Maybe someone has a new car your dog does not recognize. It could be a thousand harmless things setting her off. Maybe you are able to figure out what triggers her and even better somehow show her what it is and that it's no threat and that you yourself remain calm around it. That's probably what I would try if my dog obviously barked at the same thing every night.
Thank you ... Really helpful. We do yell at times and I can see how that would make is worse so we will stop that. I told my husband last night that I thought she might be bored so he took her is the backyard before the barking started and played fetch with her and she was much better . Mackenzie is very territorial/protective of myself and my husband , and she totally does the walk thing .A couple times a week she will grab the leash half way through our walk and drag me back home, I thought she was afraid of something.
Juuust a typical Bull Terrier. Sometimes I soooo wish I could really talk to my girl - and get real answers from her - just for one single time! I would have SO many questions!
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If the dog gets enough exercise in my experience training the dog and staying calm yourself when the dog barks helps best with that. But it can be hard to make this go away for good.
I have trained my girl to bark and stop barking on command. This way I can tell her its NOT the noise but HER BARKING that annoys me.
But this takes time. And some people hesitate to actually teach their dogs to bark because they are afraid then they will never stop again. I get that hesitation. But I also know that's not going to be the case. It is not about the barking itself but rather about being able to TELL your dog THIS is what upsets you.
Often, when trying to stop an untrained barking dog by yelling at it, this even sparks more and louder barking, clearly showing that there's a misunderstanding here. The dog probably rather thinks that the human is kind of barking or yelling at the same thing the dog is "pointing out".
After all, when barking the dog does something for the pack: It informs everyone that it saw or heard something it considers threatening to itself, the pack or the home.
I once read something interesting from one trainer: She is actually praising her dog for the barking and then tells it to stop (she also taught her dog the bark/stop command).
By the praise she is telling her dog "Thanks for alerting me, you did a good job, I heard your warning." Then the stop command tells the dog: "I now know that something's going on. You can stop alerting. I got it from here and will take care of it."
This is also why yelling can be so counterproductive because to your dog you seem upset. And if it does not get that it's the barking and not the noise the dog heard is what upset you, it will tend to bark even more in order to scare away the source of the noise.
After thinking about what sounded really odd to me in the first place the trainer's argument started to make sense to me and I tried it ... I still do it today.
But in all honesty, I have to say that while I am able to STOP barking in its early stages today, depending on my girl's excitement it can still take one or two times. And I can NOT prevent it completely with my strategy. Because she just gets more alert when it gets dark outside and sometimes she will just bark.
Maybe it's someone newly working the night shift and leaving home around 6pm or so causing new noises. Maybe someone has a new car your dog does not recognize. It could be a thousand harmless things setting her off. Maybe you are able to figure out what triggers her and even better somehow show her what it is and that it's no threat and that you yourself remain calm around it.
That's probably what I would try if my dog obviously barked at the same thing every night.
Sometimes I soooo wish I could really talk to my girl - and get real answers from her - just for one single time! I would have SO many questions!