Advice Required About Barking

[lost in espace]

I adopted a 9 year old black lab 4 months ago. She is very good, will sit on command and stay if required. Although you have to really shout to get her to listen to you at times, other times she will react to a quiet voice so her hearing is fine.

When we go for a walk before we even get out of the door she is barking with excitement, and has quite a loud bark. This can continue in the car until we get to the park. I can handle this, but the rehoming centre suggested squirting her with water to calm her down, this certainly works and when shown the bottle will quieten down for a minute.

She is ball obsessed and will recover a ball, drop it near you and immediately bark several times. If I tell her to sit she will and goes quiet but you can't tell her quickly enough. But the barking literally starts the moment she randomly drops the ball. I would really like to stop this behaviour as the park is near houses, you can probably here here half a mile away.

Here is a video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ymLveeS1Kfwb4Hyd7

Any tips on keeping her quiet when she recovers the ball?

My Staffie is also ball mad, and tries to grab the lab's ball and carry two balls in her mouth. Can be quite challenging going for a walk with them both.

[Camoradi]

An extra ball so you can throw it as soon as she drops the other?

[ARHarh]

Dogs tend to bark when encouraging you or other dogs to.play. If you have problems with your dog barking to get you to play just ignore them, no point shouting or trying to stop it happening as they will.think it's play and do it more.

[lost in espace]

Camoradi said:

An extra ball so you can throw it as soon as she drops the other?

Yes will give that a try, we have to bring extra balls as the Staffie nicks the other ball and walks around with 2 in her mouth. It ends up as a massive puzzle trying to work out where the balls are and who has dropped one randomly.

Walks without balls are much better and they walk/sniff as any dog would, but we have this issue with them being a bonded pair and the Staffy won't walk fast or long, and the lab needs as much exercise as possible. But they won't walk if the other one isn't there.

[TheLoraxxZeus]

lost in espace said:

When we go for a walk before we even get out of the door she is barking with excitement, and has quite a loud bark. This can continue in the car until we get to the park. I can handle this, but the rehoming centre suggested squirting her with water to calm her down, this certainly works and when shown the bottle will quieten down for a minute.

Don't do that. That's terrible advice and it will either give the dog fear of water/anything shaped like a spray bottle or annoy them to the point they start to fear you. You don't want you own dog going through stages of fear response with you.

All you can really do is reward silence and ignore barking. There is nothing else you can do outside of that.

Also stop shouting at her when she doesn't listen, if she is barking for attention, raising your voice just enforces that being loud leads to getting what you desire.

I can't suggest highly enough of ignoring the dog properly. By that I mean turn around, ignore, no eye contact. Give it 30 seconds. If you turn around and give a sit command and he still doesn't do it, repeat. Dogs don't like being ignored. You could also try a positive punishment technique of removing stimulants from her when she barks, and return them when they are silent. If she is ball motivated you already have the means to do this.

Nothing but time and consistency is going to fix it.

EDIT: Worth mentioning my dog went through a demand/excite barking phase when he was 1 year. It was constant. Any time you were eating, sitting down, at our face at 0700 when we slept, every noise...bark bark bark. We started teaching him to bark on command, and reward him for it. He quickly realised that when he barks without being told he doesn't get jackst. YMMV on that one though.

Edited by TheLoraxxZeus on Monday 26th September 15:36

[lost in espace]

TheLoraxxZeus said:

Don't do that. That's terrible advice and it will either give the dog fear of water/anything shaped like a spray bottle or annoy them to the point they start to fear you. You don't want you own dog going through stages of fear response with you.

Edited by TheLoraxxZeus on Monday 26th September 15:36

Yes we stopped doing that a long time ago, my lab would shut up when presented with the bottle which was good but it didn't feel right at all.

Thanks so much for your helpful advice and experience, all taken onboard. She seems to have calmed down a bit, this morning we managed a walk with no barking although my staffy was left at home which helped.

[Boosted LS1]

When the dog sits quietly you put it's lead on. When it stands quietly you open the front door. When it walks towards the car quietly you can arrive and open the door. If the dog barks then you start again. Soon the dog will realise that barking takes it back to the house. gentle praise will help but don't let the dog get excited. When they bark n the car that can be hard to stop and an assistant sitting by the dag may be helpful, to praise quiet behaviour calmly.

I once had a border collie that drove me nuts in the car.

[TheLoraxxZeus]

Boosted LS1 said:

I once had a border collie that drove me nuts in the car.

My dog is silent in the car but he insists on standing in the middle, blocking my rear view. He also often leans his head on your shoulder or seat. It's cute but also very annoying.

[ARHarh]

TheLoraxxZeus said:

Boosted LS1 said:

I once had a border collie that drove me nuts in the car.

My dog is silent in the car but he insists on standing in the middle, blocking my rear view. He also often leans his head on your shoulder or seat. It's cute but also very annoying.

Once had a border Collie who barked at Policemen every time he saw one. Apparently due to a previous owner being in the RAF and not treating him well. Guess he thought a police uniform looked like an RAF uniform. Very embarrassing at times.

[Snow and Rocks]

As others have said, throwing the ball every time he barks is effectively rewarding him for barking. Every time you do it, you're training the dog to bark.

Dog training is largely about rewarding the stuff you want and making the stuff you don't want less rewarding. Ignoring can work but it all depends on how rewarding the dog finds barking.

For an extreme example, our saluki cross is generally well behaved with great recall but finds chasing things incredibly good fun. I could stand there with a whole freshly roasted chicken and she'd still ignore me and chase the rabbit. The only choice in that case is to either keep her permanently on the lead (cruel given how much she loves running and exploring the hills around where we live) or make the chasing less fun. I used a method that others on here will probably condemn but it worked and she's now free to live her daily life almost entirely without a lead.

You just need to think about the barking and make it less rewarding to do it - what that entails is the tricky bit Definitely stop throwing the ball unless he's quiet though!

Edited by Snow and Rocks on Tuesday 27th September 18:50