Hi Willow, our one year old lab bitch, has started barking at everyone she sees in the last couple of months, and it seems to be getting worse, or at least more widespread. She started off barking at people seemingly wanting to play with them, she does this when we have visitors too, and as much as we tell them to ignore her until she calms down, they of course tend to reinforce that behaviour. Now she barks at people at the window, when we're out walking and has also started barking at people (both real and perceived) when out in the garden(s). When walking she tends to be better when off the lead, but will still get over excited especially with other dogs; we don't feel confident to let her off often as we've failed to develop a reliable recall (we'll be working on that again soon). She also appears to be slightly protective and/or jealous of our 4 year old (particularly if other people are playing with him and not her, which is why I'm not sure if it's jealousy or protectiveness). Unfortunately despite our best efforts early on, including a lot of socialisation even before she was allowed on the ground, a combination of illness and difficult family circumstances meant that her early training and routines were missed or reduced. We're only starting now to get back on track with all the things we intended to do and we could do with some help with the barking. It's hard to tell sometimes whether it's excitement, anxiety or aggression - which leads me to my first questions: 1. How do I determine the nature of the bark, whether excitement, anxiety or aggression? Out an about she tends to be barking, jumping and wagging her tail. But when she's barking at people out the window or even more so when in the garden then her hackles are up. 2. Having determined the emotional cause what can I do to reduce that emotion and the behaviour?
I would say that this is not 'aggression'. This sort of thing is usually excitement, which can then turn to frustration when the doggie doesn't get to approach the person because of some barrier or the lead. A bit of anxiety might be involved too. And when she barks at people going past there is probably an element of alerting you. There are quite a few articles on the main site on barking, like this one: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-avoid-your-labrador-barking-at-passers-by/ Have a look on the site for other barking articles. In your case, because there's a child in the picture and you've mentioned a couple of issues there I'd suggest seeing an experienced behaviourist who has a good track record and who uses positive and gentle methods. They can help you work with the recall too. Make sure that any behaviourist you use does not subscribe to a 'dominance' model but instead has a good understanding of modern approaches based on learning theory.
She loves people and she loves attention, so I find it hard to believe she's being aggressive, but maybe it's mock aggression the way that a puppy might play with siblings. She hasn't had as much contact with other dogs as we would've liked, so that would probably add to her frustration. Humans like playing with her, but don't like playing rough games involving teeth etc. What could we do to minimise that frustration and teach her that even when she's on the lead or behind some kind of barrier that she will still get something good? I had seen the article about passers by and to be honest was a bit wary of having to block the view. Will that really help break that learned behaviour, because it also stops her from experiencing the trigger? Could we also try every time she sees someone outside distracting her with something even more exciting inside, show her that people outside aren't the most exciting?
I've had two different issues with my two with barking. One was fear-based, and particularly affected my Willow, but Shadow as well to some extent. When they saw something or someone they didn't like - people in hats and hoods (there are a lot when you live in a ski resort!), people up ladders, children, someone coming around a corner unexpectedly etc, they would bark at them. Sometimes with a wagging tail, but that's often a sign of uncertainty and not necessarily happiness. With her, I used a method called "Look at that" from a book called Control Unleashed (I recommend this book). There are apparently several different applications of it, but I use it like this: dog sees something she's nervous of, I click my clicker before she can react, dog gets a treat. After lots of repetitions of this, you'll find the dog starts to see the thing that makes her nervous and immediately look to you for her treat. You're both desensitising her to the nasty thing (pleasure of having a treat starts negating the fear of the object/person) and giving her another way of managing herself in these situations. Do it in enough situations and she'll start to generalise. Some people use a "look at that!" verbal cue, but I don't do this. I also don't want her gaze to be locked on mine; I want her to be free to look at whatever she wants (unlike "look at me"), and then make the choice to be calm about it. For my boy, Shadow, I have a more recent problem of frustration barking when he's on lead or in the car and there are other dogs that he can't get to. I'm using a similar technique to above with him, with a high rate of reward. Again, I still want him to be able to look at the other dog, but he needs to learn to do so calmly. This is great when I'm the passenger in the car (my dogs are harnessed on the back seat), because I can grab a handful of treats when I see we're about to pass a dog, and, the second he notices, start streaming treats. We're still in the early days of managing this, and it's worsened since he was set on by a group of farm dogs recently, but we're making progress. I'm taking it very slowly with him, because I need to try to get him to associate other dogs with good things. In time, I'll start spreading the treats out a bit, but for now - seeing dogs = loads of food in his tummy! I don't use the clicker in the car, because I'm really close to his head and I don't want it to be too loud and cause him discomfort, so I just use a marker word ("good"). I use the same technique, albeit with a clicker, when we're out in the street, but this is a lot more challenging, especially when the other dog is coming towards us. It's imperative that I keep the distance between us manageable, because he goes over threshold very easily, and so I've sometimes taken to running full pelt away from another dog and owner, much to their bemusement, until I can get to a place where we can observe calmly. Lots of super high value treats are imperative for this kind of training. For your window problem, the easiest thing to do is to create set-ups, so you can set Willow up for success and you're not just reacting to something happening with no warning on your part. So, employ a friend to be the passer-by, and instruct them to stop walking immediately they hear Willow bark. Stay in full sight, just stopped. The second she goes quiet again, they can start moving again. Meanwhile, you reinforce the quiet by using treats. As it explains in that article, it's difficult with real people, because they disappear as the dog barks - the dog makes the association and is therefore "rewarded" for barking - they chased that nasty stranger away! So, having your friend stopping if she barks (and do this over and over) means she's losing that reward, but gaining the treats for being quiet. I think it's a hard nut to crack, so good luck Sorry, I appear to have waffled on there!
No waffling there, really helpful to see your experiences. That's exactly the sort of technique that I was starting to think about after reading a couple of short articles about similar things.
