Waverly turns 7 months old in a few days. Everything has been going mostly smooth with her since I've gotten her beside a few bumps here and there. She has been heavily socialized because she's training to be a service dog for me. She does amazing with other people and sits politely if they want to pet her. But for the last month or so all of her socialization has left the building. I took her to the vet last month for a checkup. She's been to this vet MULTIPLE times to make sure she doesn't develop a fear of the vet. At first, she was all butt wiggles and happy. Then when we walked in the door she lost her mind. She barked nonstop for an hour straight so much so that she started drooling and foaming at the mouth. Thankfully they put us in a room after about 15 minutes of barking. But even in the room if anyone passed the room or she heard anyone talking she barked. Since then it doesn't matter if we are in the car, at training, in the house, at a drive-through window, etc. She barks at EVERYONE. I've tried backing off like starting at the back of a parking lot where she can see and hear people but she's not barking and slowly working our way forward. But the second she gets to the point that she can clearly see people she loses her mind. I'm worried that this is going to hinder her training and ability to be a service dog.
I looked at this post without signing in and three separate adverts came up for anti barking devices which I am sure the site doesn’t endorse! Please ignore those if you see them. One of the trainers will hopefully give you some good suggestions. I have a slight problem with barking indoors at noises outside and excessive barking when someone comes to the door. Hope it settles down for you soon.
Oh no, I would never use the anti-barking devices. My neighbor uses one for her dog and I don't ever want my dog to be that afraid of a collar.
I’m going to reply - even though I’m kinda going through the same thing (except Molly just randomly starts barking at US and won’t stop) - in the hope that someone has some solutions for you. My totally unprofessional opinion here is that somehow, something happened that made Waverly bark and she got a reaction that rewarded the bark (not necessarily from you, so don’t think I’m blaming you - I’m not). It could honestly be something as simple as you guys went to the vet, she had a good time and got treats, and the next time you went to the vet she was SO excited that she vocalized that excitement and she was either treated, or shushed . . . but either way, the bark got reinforced and now it’s a habit. I do know this - if a dog barks and they get a “reward”, it encourages them to bark again. And what I’ve seen with our Molly is that even making eye contact with her when she starts to bark will feed the frenzy, and pretty soon she’s barking because she just doesn’t know what else to do. So we’ve discovered it works better to completely ignore her when she barks. We don’t speak to her, we don’t hush her, we don’t make eye contact. (Ideally we could maintain this level of calm with her barking all the time, but it’s hard and we fail - which is why we’re still working on it.) Then, as soon as she takes a breath for even a second and is quiet, I make eye contact and say, “Good quiet” or “Good calm”. If she starts the barking again (which she usually does) I turn away and don’t react until she quiets - then I repeat “Good quiet” and give her attention. Sometimes she just barks and barks, and I just keep ignoring and it finally winds down to a whine and some moaning (she’s very vocal) and she’ll go to her bed and settle to sleep. So it seems to me that maybe you are inadvertently reinforcing the barking by putting Waverly back in the situations that started the barking in the first place. I know you’re trying to “desensitize”, but I don’t think dog brains operate that way. I hope someone who knows more than I do will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think keeping Waverly away from triggers that make her bark until you get barking dealt with otherwise (by not allowing any reward for the barking) and then establishing a reward for “good quiet/calm” is essential before you put her back in the “triggering” situations.
Just came across this article by Snowbunny that could be helpful to your situation. If the link doesn’t work, look for “Look at That” in the stickies are the top of this forum listing. https://thelabradorforum.com/threads/look-at-that.22184/
