My dog is very loud

ihmmy

so my dog is pretty yappy. Like, ridiculously so. In the house it's not as big a deal as I can usually convince her to shush, however if I'm doing stuff in the house and need her out, I try putting her in the backyard and all she does is yelp and scratch at the door as though she's being beaten outside. She has a doghouse and water and toys outside, but all she wants to do is be near me. I would like to be able to leave her outside during the day rather than kenneling her, at least while the weather's nice (before winter hits)

any tips? she's kind of... driving me crazy lately. such a high pitched yelpy squealing noise
(she's a mini eskimo/chihuahua cross, for anyone curious)

badpoet

I would suggest trying to change the dog's behavior first. I would see if there's a dog trainer nearby that you can work with or perhaps your vet can suggest one.

There are shock or herbal spray collars that are triggered by barking, as well as ultasonic bark controllers. Also, debarking may be an option if you can't find a behavior way to address the problem and you want to keep the dog. Keep in mind that doesn't keep the dog from barking, it does knock the decibel level down quite a bit though.

Iruka

How exercised is your dog? Many dogs are just no good at sitting out in yards by themselves or playing by themselves. My old dog wouldn't bark, but he would just whine and stare at me through the window and put him out in the yard. once he grew out of chasing his tail, he needed two walks a day that were at least a good, solid hour long for him to feel exercised, and even after that he needed some playing.

If you've got that covered, you're probably caving too much when shes barking at you. You're rewarding her by paying attention to her when shes barking (even by telling her to shush. Looking for a trainer works, but there are tons of tips online for this as well. Basically it will all involve ignoring her when shes all pent up and rewarding her when shes calm.

Darkewolfe

Iruka wrote: »

If you've got that covered, you're probably caving too much when shes barking at you. You're rewarding her by paying attention to her when shes barking (even by telling her to shush. Looking for a trainer works, but there are tons of tips online for this as well. Basically it will all involve ignoring her when shes all pent up and rewarding her when shes calm.

http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/smalltoydogs.htm

It's not a perfect article, but it's a basic explanation on how we generally train bad behaviors in small dogs that we wouldn't allow in larger dogs.

GungHo

Sounds like seperation anxiety.