Barking - New Owner

K

Kami

Forums Novice
Hello everyone, new Sheltie owner with some probably basic questions. I have had little Emma for several months and she is now six months old. When I purchased her, I was home on summer break from college. My parents have a large house in a quiet neighborhood and a large backyard. There are also other siblings and we also have two other dogs that she is used to playing with. Barking on walks, in the yard, when we vacuumed... was a little problem, but one that we were well on the way to conquering. In that short time, I got to to not bark at anything other than very hyper dogs. Well, three weeks ago I moved back to school and now live in a tiny colleg-apartment. Her barking is 10x worse. She barks at everything now! People, cars, bikes, dogs, any noise basically. The methods I employed at home are simply not working. I have tried the coins in a can, spray bottle, holding her mouth, popping her on the nose, treats, firmly telling her "Quiet!".... but nothing is working. She exercises a great deal. A 30 -40 minute run/walk at 5am, then she goes in her pen while I am in class, I come back for lunch and she goes on a 15-20 minute walk, then back in her pen, then in the evening she goes on a longer walk. I also play fetch and try to stimulate her with toys and stuff. From what I read, barking isn't an uncommon trait with shelties, its just I have tried most everything I have read about. Any other suggestions?
thanks
 
Kami said:
Hello everyone, new Sheltie owner with some probably basic questions. I have had little Emma for several months and she is now six months old. When I purchased her, I was home on summer break from college. My parents have a large house in a quiet neighborhood and a large backyard. There are also other siblings and we also have two other dogs that she is used to playing with. Barking on walks, in the yard, when we vacuumed... was a little problem, but one that we were well on the way to conquering. In that short time, I got to to not bark at anything other than very hyper dogs. Well, three weeks ago I moved back to school and now live in a tiny colleg-apartment. Her barking is 10x worse. She barks at everything now! People, cars, bikes, dogs, any noise basically. The methods I employed at home are simply not working. I have tried the coins in a can, spray bottle, holding her mouth, popping her on the nose, treats, firmly telling her "Quiet!".... but nothing is working. She exercises a great deal. A 30 -40 minute run/walk at 5am, then she goes in her pen while I am in class, I come back for lunch and she goes on a 15-20 minute walk, then back in her pen, then in the evening she goes on a longer walk. I also play fetch and try to stimulate her with toys and stuff. From what I read, barking isn't an uncommon trait with shelties, its just I have tried most everything I have read about. Any other suggestions?
thanks
Click to expand...


welcome to Sheltie Nation
She sounds like a typical Sheltie, who are VERY noise and motion reactive. :rolleyes2:
The methods you mentioned aren't what I would employ, that just stimulates and frustrates Shelties even further and certainly escalates the behaviour. That stuff just makes a smart Sheltie more frustrated... plus she is a teenager, so things happen.
I recommend instead of trying to curb her by physically correcting her or punishing the barking, to redirect her attention to something you DO want her to do. I find a sit, look at me and rewarding with treats works great, and also move away from the distraction if you can (while at a walk) to the point where she CAN handle it without barking and THEN reward what you DO want her to do, which is watch me and gooood quiet and REWARD.

I have a 'fence fighter' and close neighbours so I feel the pain... I am able to redirect my dog now to come back to me and reward BEFORE he goes off the deep end:rolleyes2: So now he is ALMOST able to not fly off the handle if he hears the jingle of the other dog's dogtags, lol :fl
But it is training and work in progress :D
Hope some of this helps!!
 
I would limit her stimulus at your new home.
My dog barks at noises and things he can see, so I limit that as much as I can.
try leaving the radio or tv on when you are gone to give a background noise.
I also leave a fan on, that drowns out noise a bit.
make sure she can't see outside the windows either, that can make things worse.

When gavin was a pup, we literally walked over 2-3 hours day until he was over a year old. a tired dog is a quiet dog.
 
Thanks for the quick feedback. That is exactly right, when I do try those things, it simply escaltes the behavior, and then I have to address that. I will definitely give those ideas a shot, they sound like she would respond better to them than to my previous methods.
kami
 
We recently moved from a large house in a small town to an apartment in a large city. Our sheltie, Buddy, had been trained not to bark and was usually very quiet. After our move, he barked at everything. I think it was just all new to him, and it took him a while to settle down to our new life. He very rarely barks now...I think it took about a month for him to realize he was safe in our new home. Hope Emma settles in fast.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top