I'm new to this forum, so please excuse me if this topic has already been covered, or if I'm posting in the wrong area. Anyway, our new 6 month old Tessa has a serious barking issue that my wife and I can't seem to correct. I'll apologize now for my short novel post, but I want to try and provide all the information I possibly can. Tessa lives with my wife and I and our 9 yr old Golden Retriever Bailey. Three days a week, while my wife and I are at work, Tessa is kenneled. On those days my neighbor comes over with her 5 yr old son and their puppy and they let Tessa out for a half hour or so three times a day. Our three son's all live within a 15 minute drive of us and they visit quite often with their dogs and our granddaughter. We let Tessa out front in our dead end cul-de-sac almost daily with the neighborhood kids and their dogs and cats. There are no issues with any of these things. Here's the problem. If someone walks into our cul-de-sac, she starts barking. If we go on walk and she sees someone outside, she starts barking. If we take her out to Petco, she barks at everyone. This includes other animals too. The barking has people backing off as if we have "Cujo" at the end of our leash. Here's the funny thing about it. She's not being aggressive, because if she's approached, she'll start jumping on you and licking your face as if you're covered in peanut butter. She would actually go home with anyone if I were to hand over the leash. Tessa's constantly socializing with people (adults & children), other pets (both bigger and smaller than her) both on her turf and away. We got her when she was 9 weeks old and she has never been given any reason to fear others. I just don't get it! Does anyone have any idea why she is doing this, and more importantly, how to stop it. Thanks!
Hello and welcome to the forum. Do you think it's anxiety, or excitement/frustration that's making her bark? A video would be useful, if that's possible?
I will try and post a vid soon. I'm clueless. She does appear a little hesitant when approached but she's not acting submissive. There are times where she'll be home with us 24/7 for a few days straight and it happens, so I can't think of any other reason where anxiety might factor in. I forgot to add earlier that I don't believe it's "bad genes" as a co-worker suggested to me. A different neighbor bought Tessa's sister on the same day and she doesn't have this issue.
I have two anxious dogs and they can bark at people, so I understand entirely what you're going through. If it is anxiety, there are ways and means of dealing with it - I've had great successes and it's now only when they come across something completely out of the ordinary (such as a man in a wet suit carrying a surf board they saw for the first time the other day). But, there's no point approaching it as anxiety if it's excitement/frustration. So a video would really help to see if we can work out what's going on. It's entirely possible it is something in her genes - after all, she doesn't have identical genes to all her litter mates. But it doesn't really matter if it's that, or if it's something you didn't notice that's caused it somewhere along the line. If she's anxious, she's anxious, and whatever the cause, it can be fixed with time and patience Out of interest, many people find that this is a time when dogs start to become a bit fearful of their environments. She's starting to get more independent so, instead of trusting you implicitly to keep her safe, she'll be starting to use her own judgement and that can be scary. Some dogs pass through this easily and others need a little help along the way. Of course, it may not be anything to do with anxiety at all!
Barking is a tricky one. It is good to try to determine the cause - anxiety or aggression or whatever. However I will confess that my previous dog (a Border Collie/Australian ShepherdX) was just about the world's barkiest dog. I tried everything in the positive training methods that I could but I didn't make much of a dent in it. I eventually had to accept that he was a vocal dog. Even if it was embarrassing going on walks with him as he barked his face off - in that case it was excitement. Anyhow just to say some dogs are more vocal than others, so even if you are (hopefully) successful in eliminating much of the barking you might just have to accept a certain amount of it.
