Hi Poppy is a year old this weekend we think she was born in a ditch so not 100% sure...but her barking has got worse how do I tell her to stop, sometimes its at anything that moves people passing the window, cars passing by and we have a particular problem with a Postman... but he did scare her when she was little so that is his fault, it seems to be when she is inside she doent bark at all whilst walking outside, any pointers please. Thankyou
Re: Excessive Barking Hi, there are several articles on barking on the main website Noisy Labradors: the root of the problem Barking at passers-by Click for quiet Hope you find them helpful, it sounds as though your main issue is Passer-by syndrome, the second article is particularly relevant. Pippa
Re: Excessive Barking Hi, Martha, who is one year old, does something similar. She will bark when someone comes to our front door and sometimes continue to bark for a very short time - the odd "woof", when they come in. Last night I called into our local pub with her, on the way back from our walk and she settled well and then decided to bark at one man only. Again, a few "woofs" - I distracted her, settled her down had her sit and rewarded her when she was sitting and calm. The person she chose to bark at is a postman, but wasn't in uniform so it seems too far fetched to think her reaction is related to any aversion to postmen. We are working through the steps to discourage her from barking when people come to the house, but am not sure what to do about occasional barking at apparently random people when out. Any thoughts would be welcome. Thanks Stephen
Re: Excessive Barking Hi Stephen, we had a very similar situation with our Poppy, who was nervous of strangers and would growl and bark at them. We spent a lot of time gradually getting her used to walking past strangers, calling her to heel and giving her a treat if she walked right by us with none of the woofing or growling. It worked well, and she doesn't do that anymore.
Re: Excessive Barking Karen, that's brilliant, thank you. We are taking that approach to stop her pulling towards other dogs, which is starting to pay off, so will do the same with barking. I'd love to know why she chooses to bark at some people, ignores others and tries to dart towards others - all randomly. She also growls/barks if she sees anyone with a walking stick, so I sense she may have had a bad experience with someone with a walking stick before we got her as an 11 month old. Stephen
Re: Excessive Barking We could never explain why Pops just did not like some people... She really didn't like old people, but since we got her at 8 weeks there are no extenuating circumstances!
