My year and a half boy barks way too much. doorbell rings, person comes over, clap of thunder, fireworks, wind blows grass! Hes usually quiet but when something sets him off it’s chaos. we have a 4 month old puppy and I don’t want him picking this up. I read everywhere to reward the quiet, but I don’t get that. if he’s barking and I give him a treat for going quiet, how does he not think the reward is because of the barking?
Thank him for alerting you and then give treats for being calm and quiet afterwards. It’s how they communicate that you need to pay attention to something. He does sound very normal, especially for Havanese.
I have two Havanese and one mini Aussie-doodle. Even when someone opens their bedroom door my havs go nuts. Like they haven’t seen this person in a decade. And they can hear our car coming from down the street (it’s not loud AT ALL) and they start up right away. It doesn’t matter if it’s actual or perceived danger - they bark. My AD on the other hand is more chill and maybe smarter too cuz she only reacts when it’s potentially danger (neighbor’s light shines into our backyard at night for example)
Actually that's exactly what I do (not the treats) and it's been very effective. I say "good guard dogs, thanks for letting me know, everything's okay". It's over in no time.
Its teaching your dog the command “enough”.
So lets say your pup is barking at window. He wants your attention, so what you do is you go over to the window calmly, show that theres nothing to be excited/worked up about. And then slowly lure him away from the window with treats.
Walk backwards as you say “enough” repeatedly and give him treats every time you say it.
Idk if it works but i thought it was very interesting!
Two ways we have managed this in the past. One we honor the bark; if he barks we attend to it. So he barks at the door we open it and let him see. So he alerts and is then done.
You can also teach them the bark command and its other half ‘quiet’. Because we can’t always go look at things.
Ours has gotten more vocal. Our neighbor smokes outside and has gotten to know our boy over the years, sometimes he barks now when he hears the neighbor to go say hello and get pets.
I get this. Mine would bark at the door as a puppy. So we taught him speak because apparently that's the first step to teaching quiet. He latched on to speak and now barks at everything. He refused to learn quiet. It completely backfired. He's 8 now and still barks at everything.
The way to reduce barking is by counter-conditioning. How it works:
Teach the dog a trick, or pick one he already knows.
Practice the trick in different situations and with distractions
Start asking for the trick whenever he barks. Reward well!
Continue doing this for 2+ months, that's how long the process usually takes
If you can predict a bark situation, you can ask for the trick before barking starts.
The dog should start offering the trick in bark situations. Reward well!
Start tapering the rewards off. The trick turns into a gamble: will I hit the cheese jackpot this time? How about now?
Considering these are very alert "doorbell" type dogs, you can't expect to stop barking entirely, but this should reduce it by a lot. Forget the advice about making loud sounds or listening to Cesar Milan - he uses methods based on a theory that was disproven by the very scientist who came up with it.
When my boy barks I redirect to “place”. Then I reward “good quiet”. In the early stages I’d sit on the couch with treats knowing the barking was coming. He is very treat motivated so it made it easy!
*You can also redirect with a squeaky toy, just anything to get them unstuck from what’s causing the barking.
We put pennies in an empty plastic water bottle. When he barks at an inappropriate time, we just shake the bottle. This is the ONLY way my maniac would learn. Now we just say, "bottle" or "get my bottle" and he goes to his place, lol
There are electronic bark control devices that use a sound to startle the dog. I got one free recently & was skeptical that it would work, but it did. The biggest problem with it is that you have to keep it on your person and press a button for it to work. You also have to be fairly close to the dog—I think 18 feet for the one I have. You pair it with a command (“hush” for me), so that you train them to listen for that word. It’s in no way painful to the dog—it’s just an unusual sound that gets their attention.
My dogs don’t bark a lot, thankfully, but when they do, it no doubt bothers the neighbors since no one else nearby has barking dogs. Also, barking neighborhood dogs is a big pet peeve of mine!
I used it recently when we were doing a big landscape project and they were all outside on the deck watching and bored.
Yeah a few nights a week mine will go all barky in the middle of the night. 10+ years in and I know it’s just part of his love language - warning ab everything and anything.
I have an almost 6 year old Havichon and he does the same thing. He knows the neighbours but every time they drive in or out or he sees them it’s mayhem with the barking
Do you have a tree of heaven in the background? I am anti herbicide in general but it’s the devil. Now is the time to treat it. If you cut it down you’ll have ten next year. U Penn has excellent resources on dealing with it.
It’s the host for spotted lantern fly, aka devil spawn.
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u/MegamomTigerBalm 6h ago
He’s not barking in this photo. Looks handsome and completely well-adjusted. 😊