New Puppy! Now...how to make her stop barking? [WITH PICS!]

nakirush

Hello H/A!

Meet Echo. She is a 12 week old boxer/lab/dalmation (we think) rescue who has recently joined our family. She is a well behaved, intelligent pup and she is always eager to please.



More Pics:

We have been clicker training her for about two weeks now and she is catching on very fast; almost 100% house trained, knows sit, fetch and lie down, and is doing very well on her leash training. She gets along with our other dog (Max, a 13 year old Yorkie) 90% of the time, but sometimes her energy gets the best of her.

Echo LOVES to play. When she is with my husband or I she is completely content to play by herself or to sit/lay with us, but when we put her and Max outside she will try and try to get him to play with her. This can sometimes lead to long bouts of barking as she tries to get Max's attention. We are afraid this is going to piss off our neighbors, so we are trying to figure out how to teach her silence. If we go out to supervise their play she immediately quiets down.

How do we teach Echo not to bark when we are not there? I've heard of collars that give a little spray or static shock when she barks, is this a good idea? (She doesn't bark when strangers come over anyway, so I'm not afraid of her being a 'bad' guard dog.)

Thanks!

James

NightDragon

Is it possible for you to put them outside at different times?

nakirush

Sadly, no. I am a full time student and my husband works so we are both gone for 4+ hours a day and they both have to be outside. When I am home I will put them outside one at a time if she gets loud, but it's only a short term fix.

bowen

My favorite way is to treat the barking as a bad behavior. Tell the puppy to "quiet" in a calm but firm voice, then wait for them to stop barking and reward them. Repeat it and they usually get the point. Be consistent though. You can also gently close her mouth for the "stop barking" part. Don't hurt the puppy though.

That puppy is cute as fuck too.

nakirush

Thanks, @bowen! That's more or less what I've we've been doing, but she rarely barks if we are in the same room/outside with her so it's been difficult to be consistant.

Snicketysnick

I had a lot of success by first teaching my labradoodle to bark on command, then using that as a reference for exactly what "quiet" means. The main benefit was that you can practice being quiet while the pup is not distracted/is in a good mood for learning.

Heffling

I would also advise taking your pup on walks and, if available in your area, to a dog park. Socialization and an outlet for her energy will work wonders.

Aioua

Snicketysnick wrote: »

I had a lot of success by first teaching my labradoodle to bark on command, then using that as a reference for exactly what "quiet" means. The main benefit was that you can practice being quiet while the pup is not distracted/is in a good mood for learning.

My housemates are teaching their pup both to bark on "speak" as well as make a quite woof on "whisper".

It seems to be kind of working. At least gives the dog an idea that we care bout what kind of sounds they make.

hsu

Quick note: for a dog, speaking is barking. That is, if she's barking at you, she's trying to talk to you, so if you talk back at her, she thinks it's a conversation, so she thinks it's fine to keep talking/barking at you. Thus, part of training her to be quiet requires that you be quiet as well.

If she's barking because she wants to play, it really means you need to exercise her until she's tired. Yeah, I know, this can get annoying, when you want to do your own thing, but exercising your dog is one of the best ways to prevent unwanted behavior (mostly because you'll be with your dog so much that you can stop unwanted behavior immediately).

nakirush

Thanks for the tips! I will start working on both training her to speak and taking her for more runs.

chromdom

Maybe not quite the same thing, but a little relevant and maybe the idea of teaching her to do something would be helpful?

ceres

I came in here to say that every time I see this thread title I feel like we are being asked to find the perfect picture that will stun your puppy into an awed silence.

...But chromdom's reading works just as well!

chromdom

....trying to give credit where credit's due, I saw that on the Best Of section yesterday, but now I can't find who posted it originally.
Sorry whoever you are!