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Excessive barking

1.3K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  Ronne  
#1 ·
So our once quiet little fellow is becoming a barky mess. He barks whenever our apartment neighbors slam the door, walk up the stairs, or when the gentleman below us opens or shuts his sliding door, whenever dogs outside are barking, etc etc.

Before a woof here and there wouldn't be such a problem. However, the gentleman below us has certain times when he needs quiet from us upstairs (like no running the dishwasher, showers, or washing machine/dryer [walls are thin-ish in regards to appliances]) because he works certain hours of the day and needs to rest. I think he works night shift... or something.

We have spoken to him and apologized (my mother and I) about our addition and the potential noise he may be causing and so far he seems okay and has said it's no problem. However, we don't want it to become a problem so we try to keep Graham as quiet as possible. But we aren't having any luck.

When he barks he fixates on whatever hes barking at and won't listen to any kind of redirection of focus. Whether it be vocal or toy redirection. Haven't tried treats yet, as I don't want to accidentally enforce the behavior.

In short... halp! I don't know how to fix this. When he barks suddenly at night it kills a lot of sleep for me and my mom. Ironically, storms aren't even a problem for the little dude, either!
 
#2 ·
Check out the reactivity sticky. Pretty sure there is a video for "listen to that" similar to "look at that." If not, yt that game, should help.
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#3 ·
Stop your dog barking at the door - dog training tutorial - YouTube

Here is Kikopup in her training her pup Kiko.

This is what I am going to train Kuma my foster to stop doing when guests come over. Sometimes he gets fixated and other times he doesn't. At night when we are dead asleep is when he gets extremely fixated, so I have been adding shush. Especially since I have a next door neighbor who lives in the house next to mine. (The house is joined together so it's like an appartment, but we both have doors that lead outside and we both have porches. We have thin walls too.)

So check her out and you can get creative and find what works for you. Another thing is when you are able to get your dog to stop barking even for a slight moment, click and treat before he brings on another bark. (But you'd have to be quick and precise to get it correct.) You can get the pup in a sit if you taught your dog to sit. Reward with a high treat. (If you are using clicker training, this would help. If not, just use a simple Yes but you'd have to say it all the time the same way, same tone.)
 
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#4 ·
Thanks! I'll try that.


My mom spoke with our neighbor and he said he's not bothered by the barking at all, and won't talk to our landlord about it. The only reason he would is if he was on his deck downstairs and Graham was upstairs and urinated (ultimately landing on him because the slats have a space). But he doesn't use the outdoor deck for anything more than sunbathing, so I don't think we'll have that problem.
 
#5 ·
You are a very good neighbor to be so considerate. The gentleman downstairs is lucky to have you. Not everyone would care, much less try to fix things!
 
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#6 ·
We try!
I'm so glad that our neighbors across the hall are so accepting of Graham. I took him out this evening and the gentleman was downstairs, and he let up a storm of barks. I felt a bit helpless, none the less. But he just smiled and said cute dog.
 
#7 ·
My little man has recently started to become more vocal too. I found that sometimes just going over to see what he was barking at seemed to be enough for him (when he wasn't getting too amped up), almost like he was just barking to "let me know" there was a bird in the yard, and me coming over quieted him down.
The only other thing that really worked was keeping a really close eye on him when I knew he was going to bark and getting in *just* before he started. It's like it broke the fixation. Obviously if I missed it, he would ignore me and keep barking, but if I distracted him in time, it was ok. Sometimes it was a toy, sometimes a treat. (You may have already tried this from what you were saying about him getting fixated)
 
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