Hello all Looking for some advice, Winnie when out in the garden just wants to bark. The garden is completely enclosed, she can't see anything but obviously hears the normal outside noises ( cars, voices, other dogs barking etc). Obviously the better weather is approaching and we'll be spending more time outside, clearly we don't want and neither do our neighbours a dog that just barks outside. How can we break this cycle, I've started bringing her inside when she starts barking. She can be nervous and we are working hard on this. Ultimately we want her to be relaxed and quiet when out in the garden. So lovely people who have loads of experience and great advice, any top training tips please?
One of the most common reasons for a dog to bark in the garden is boredom. The dog is in the garden and it's human family is in the house - what fun is that for a social animal like a dog. The dog then barks whenever it hears something to break up the boredom and barking is self rewarding for a dog. Another reason the dog is barking could be that she is guarding when she hears a house. What is really going on depends upon the type of bark she is giving and a whole lot of body language
I agree the first step is not to leave your dog in the garden alone. After that, if you are there to train then there are a few things you can try. I've recently had this with my young dog - she would bark at the foxes or even the smell of foxes, and at dogs barking in other gardens, or people pulling wheelie bins out and things, and then she started barking up at the fence at the dog next door (who was also throwing herself against the fence, barking, and my neighbours use a rattle bottle which makes my dog frightened and this made everything worse). I do think barking in the garden is habit forming, it certainly was with my puppy. In terms of what 'kind' of barking it was, well, hard to say and I'm not sure it mattered much. Alert barking mostly. Probably aggressive/fearful towards the dog throwing itself against the fence and then being punished by a rattle bottle. Whatever, I'm not sure the solution depended on knowing. You start by asking yourself what you want your dog to do instead of barking. Mine is to engage with me and work for treats. Luckily, some of the things I was working with were predictable. So for example I'd wait until I saw the resident fox walk down the wall and as soon as he left I'd take Betsy out. This meant she was pretty much guaranteed to start barking as soon as I opened the door and she caught a whiff of fox smell. So I got a click in immediately before she started barking. She then turned back to me and got a stream of treats. Soon, the smell of a fox meant she turned to me instead of barking. With the dog at the fence, or her hearing dogs bark, that wasn't as predictable. At first I would click her when she stopped barking and that did work, but I would also throw treats if I heard a dog bark and Betsy didn't bark. I think this second thing probably had more effect. With the dog at the fence, I had to cue her to come away because she wouldn't otherwise. I got a couple of cues 'ready' and 'find it' strong enough, and used those but clicked her response to them as soon as she turned away from the fence - find it was stronger, more of a primary reinforcer (turn away from dog, click, search for food). I also spent a great deal of time training stuff in the garden - go to a board, round a chair and so on. So now, she'll go to the fence when the neighbour's dog starts up, but then turn away for treats and the opportunity to earn more by playing with me instead. None of this would work if I weren't in the garden with her though, but since I don't want to leave her outside alone, it does work as a solution. Settle is a work in progress. It works for everything apart from the dog at the fence so I've still go a little way to go.
Could she be barking at squirrels and birds? You can train for that. If it's unseen people and activities outside the fence my sister found removing a few fence boards so her dog could see who was walking by solved that, along with some training. I will be doing some refresher training myself soon as warm weather brings the neighbours out and Oban will alert bark at them. My remedy for that is to laugh at him. "Ho, ho, ho, you big silly. Those are the same people who were out there last there. Silly." It works. Tells him he made a mistake, is mildly chastising to him and if Mum is laughing can anything really be wrong? Soon he wont bark at all but while he does we are at the point where saying SILLY is often enough. We have the usual number of neighbours, plus a church, park with playground and trail access immediately beside our house so there's lots of coming and going. I can't have my dog barking. I do not leave him outside alone for more than potty time needs.
With indoor and outdoor alert barking I go and 'investigate' and say "thank you for letting me know, it's a friend" and she stops. Tatze doesn't do it much at all any more 'tho she did when she was younger. So far Mollie hasn't done any alert barking - touch wood! We have the door open in the summer and the dogs have access to an enclosed patio area, which is nice because they can be outside without having the run of the garden.
Yes you can. They are the very easiest things, I find, being in plentiful supply. You can also train your dog to react in a certain way when it sees rabbits, deer, badgers....but squirrels and birds are easy because they are everywhere.
@JulieT Thank you for your response, really helpful. Winnie is never left outside on her own and her barking often starts within 20 seconds of entering the garden. She barks at any noise. I think her barking is mostly alert barking, she even barks at her own reflection in the glass window of the garden room. She is used to the clicker so I'll start trying that, I've soon got two weeks at home which will give me some quality time to start to work through it.
@JulieT Just sat in the garden having a cheeky Sunday afternoon beer, complete with clicker and bag of treats. When I heard something that would set her off I clicked before she barked. We even managed a wheelie bin being dragged by the fence, her focus was on me, no barking!!!! I'd say that's a successful first session! My old lab Maddie was never clicker trained but absolutely understands that a click means a treat. So every time you click she turns up for the treat
