Flipping out over garbage bag! Help!

Today, husband Kevin was working on one of my kitchen ceiling speakers. He needed to remove it to test it. Well, he was using a screw driver that is the ratchet kind. Greeeekkkk, greeeeekkkkk, greeeekkk, with every turn. Checkers was singing along with each greeeeekkkkk! It was very funny. We are enjoying having her here for a few weeks while on maternity leave.
 
Mine do the exact same thing to the same things! :o I have to admit I have allowed them to "help me vacuum", so that's my fault. The trash nags, it must be the sound and of course their prey drive and herding instinct :cool:
 
Liam barks at anything and everything, and always gets Emma going. The worst thing he barks at - Dad. Dad has gotten a habit of just standing in the kitchen doing nothing (new since we moved). Liam hates this and barks at him, meaning he then gets yelled at to stop. Vicious cycle. I can't get through to Dad that he is causing the barking by what he is doing.
 
lol..welcome to sheltiedom. Our girl has done that since we got her. What does help but only temporarily is to bait her with a treat into a "sit." However...whenever you don't have the bait...she can't manage to find any self restraint either..lol Gotta love em! ;-)
 
Bailey is fine with all cooking utensils. I do have to put her in another room or in a down/stay when I vacuum.

Bailey's worst enemy in the house is... paper towels! She hates them. I have no idea why, but as soon as she sees me tear one from the roll, she goes nuts.
 
Oh yes, Deska does all that and more. He even takes to the fly swatter! At the dog club office he thinks its his job to keep all the office equipment in line:rolleyes2:.

Unfortunately it is something Shelties just really, really enjoy. There are a few things you can try.

Pick the battles. They are going to bark at things - decide which things you don't want them barking at and work on those.

If I can't be bothered I lock Deska in another room (eg with the vacuuming) or I wait until he is asleep or in another room to change the garbage bags, I've given up on worrying about him barking at the cling wrap or alfoil.

A method I was taught by a behaviourist is controlled barking. That's when you let them bark at the offending item when you want. So when I sweep I get Deksa to wait (I do need to keep saying 'wait' if its a lot of sweeping). When I've finished I say 'okay' and we have a little game where I sweep the broom at him and he attacks it. You have to start with small sessions first.

With electrical items like the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. I put Deska in a wait until I turn the knob and let him bark at me turning the knob. The beauty of this approach is they learn to be controlled when you are around the object. So nowadays I can go near an appliance without Deska barking with excitement. In fact, he rarely barks at them now.
 
this is a total hoot. i am laughing so hard tears are running down my leg. and the girls are looking at me like i lost it
 
Yep, Mozart barks at the garbage bag too. Strangely, he only "hates" those big black ones. What I found with my puppy is if I keep doing whatever it is he hates directed at him soon he'll loose interest and won't bark the next time round. This has worked particularly well with vacuum and hair dryer. Now, Mozart would simply run from the room when the vacuum is on. Since the hair dryer was used to blow dry him, he'd pretend to sleep through the whole thing. Same as Barkley though, Mozart still barks non-stop at the manual chopper :rolleyes2:....but I'm not about to drop down on my hands and knees to chop at his eye level to phase him.
 
Lerwick doesn't really have that many triggers. The only two he really has are the doorbell, and the vacuum. The vacuum trigger came on slowly. At first, he just ran away from the vacuum when we used it. Then he started barking at it from a distance. Then he started barking and play-bowing at it and trying to bite the cord. We began crating him whenever we wanted to vacuum.

Interestingly, he taught himself a coping mechanism for the vacuum. One time when I was just going to vacuum up a small spill, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle to crate him. Of course, as soon as I turned the vacuum on, Lerwick started barking and circling. However, as it happened, right beside the vacuum was one of his toys. Lerwick grabbed the toy and started running around the room, brandishing the toy at the vacuum. So now, that's what we do. We leave one of his toys out near the vacuum when we start it up, and every once in awhile toss it or play tug with him for a moment while we're vacuuming. He still gets to "play" with the vacuum, but not by barking and biting at it.
 
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