Hello, First post here but hoping I can get some words of wisdom. We have a 5 month old boy who has started barking… - at people who approach him when out on walks - At random people who might be sat on a bench or walking down the other side of the road that he takes issue with - even people he has known since being a young pup that he sees out of context e.g. if we go to their house and they open their front door I can’t work out what has triggered it and looking at body language I don’t think it’s a case of being a frustrated greeter. There also doesn’t seem to be a particular type of person he barks at. We have had him since he was 8 weeks, know both his parents well and other litter mates and they all have great temperaments. We socialised him daily when younger - we live in a city and took him to busy streets where he saw all different types of people as well as those who visited our house. He has also been at puppy classes from 12 weeks. He doesn’t bark at children and is happy to be petted by them at any point. I try to get him to focus on me and distract him as well as treat when quiet but it doesn’t seem to be getting any better and I’m starting to worry that it never will. Any advice as to how to manage this type of behaviour would be much appreciated. I have tried to look at the barking at strangers link on here but the link is broken so I am none the wiser! Thank you
Hi Emga, welcome to the forum All our barking resources are collected together in this article now, I hope it helps!
Hi - I’ve had a read but this doesn’t really address our issue as he doesn’t bark at all passers by, he’ll bark at the odd one and when off less run after certain people barking at them to the point where he will run into a road after them. I am putting him on a training lead after the latest incident to prevent the running off but he gets himself to wound up to pay attention to a quiet command so I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with it
I think he's probably going through a fear phase. If it was me, I'd not be putting him under any pressure. Let him see things at a distance, reward the quiet/relaxed behaviour. Don't let him meet and greet every dog, person, etc, let him see them at a distance, if he's happy reward and slowly decrease the distance, if he isn't increase the distance. Don't fuss, just move away from whatever is scaring/worrying him. This is a really common problem. The key is don't avoid the problem, just do things at a safe distance and build up from there. Hope that helps, I'm sure your pup will come through this.
I think 5 months is a barking phase. I’ve seen so many posts about this! My Sophie is 5.5 months and goes to daycare, loves people and dogs, but he started horrible barking when we either enter a building and she sees people or dogs, or if we are in somewhere like the vet, and a person or fig walks into the room. Her bark is LOUD and it’s been frustrating. What I did today was at the vet, I’d tell her quiet and if she stopped barking I treated her and said good quiet. If she remained quiet I’d occasionally treat her again and say good quiet. I don’t think she’s caught on what quiet means yet but I’m working on it.
Hi, I know this was posted a while ago but we’re in this situation now. She’s 20 weeks and picks and chooses who she wants to say hello to/ ignore and who she barks at. Is this something that will get better with time? We’ve been to the park, beach, shops etc and when we go other places she’s better but when walking around where we live she will bark at people (mainly if they don’t have dog) thanks
