Dog Barkin, SHUT UP!

hamnegg

Livin in rented accommodation and have a pet dog, he won't shut up. love him to bits but dunno what to do!! HELP!!! got that spay collar out of argos but doesn't work. 60 euro down the swanny!

odie2020

I had a similar problem and i used this

http://www.radiofenceireland.com/barkcontrol_good_dog.html

or try this

http://www.radiofenceireland.com/silencerbarkcontrol.html


it gives him a bit of a shock and did the trick after two weeks

TheB

hamnegg wrote: »

Livin in rented accommodation and have a pet dog, he won't shut up. love him to bits but dunno what to do!! HELP!!! got that spay collar out of argos but doesn't work. 60 euro down the swanny!

Unless you find out why your dog is barking not a lot is going to stop him.. Dogs don't (usually) bark just for the hell of it.. Can you think of anything in your/his daily life that might be upsetting/exciting him ?

Radio/Spray collars stop the symptom (the barking) but not the cause.. find the cause.. then this will more often than not stop the symptom..

Bx

ETA - I don't think the collars (shock or spray) are particularly cruel if used properly but think it might be mean to force the dog to be quiet if it is genuinely trying to draw your attention to a problem.. like gagging the dog so he has to suffer whatever is bothering him/her in silence..

Strokesfan

My friend had this prob... get an empty bottle squirter (not one that had cleaning products in it preferably) and fill with water. Every time he barks, squirt him in the face. They hate it. Eventually he should equate the unnecessary barking with the unpleasent experience and hopefully stop...

Other than that, try getting him more toys or wear him out with walking etc.

Ruu_Old

Do you exercise him? If he is in the house all day then of course he is going to bark. As mentioned, I don't think collars or spray bottles are the right way around this. Find out why he is barking (hungry? are you gone often?, etc) and then look at a solution.

SuzyS1972

Interesting article here about shock collars
If a baby kept crying would you shock it to shut up - me thinks not.

Try to find the cause of the barking.

http://www.dogtrainingireland.ie/articles/DTI_18122007_ElectricShockCollars.php

peasant

first things first ...are you actually there when the dog barks or is he on his own all day?

arybvtcw0eolkf

Look at RUU and Peasants Q's and answer honestly.

If I don't exercise my dog twice daily, a long walk on the beach in the morning and a shorter play on the green in the evening he's insufferable!.

I'm not saying to move to a beach location, but you should be exercising your dog for at least an hour a day, sometimes more depending on the dog.

Exercise can be anything from long walks to rigerous playtime.

hamnegg

Thanks for all your feedback. He barks anytime he hears the neighbours out the back or a car out the front! The lad is nuts!

Going to get him the snip. I don't let him roam the streets anyway but if he ever did the last thing needed is a litter of unwanted pups. He is out of a shelter himself.

Put the spray collar on him last night and he was quiet. I probably don't excercise him enough which i'm going to have to do more regular.

cowzerp

Watch the dog whisperer on sky 3, awesome! seriously..people think im a dog guru using his techniques!!

fits

cowzerp wrote: »

Watch the dog whisperer on sky 3, awesome! seriously..people think im a dog guru using his techniques!!

*burys head in hands*
This forum makes me despair sometimes. My own brother was championing the program over Christmas.

Article from the New York Times, by Mark Derr. Do a google search and quite a few disturbing pages will appear which might change your opinion.

WITH a compelling personal story as the illegal immigrant made good because of his uncanny ability to understand dogs, Cesar Millan has taken the world of canine behavior — or rather misbehavior — by storm. He has the top-rated program, “Dog Whisperer,” on the National Geographic Channel, a best-selling book and a devoted following, and he has been the subject of several glowing magazine articles.

He is even preparing to release his own “Illusion” collar and leash set, named for his wife and designed to better allow people to walk their dogs the “Cesar way” — at close heel, under strict control.

Essentially, National Geographic and Cesar Millan have cleverly repackaged and promoted a simplistic view of the dog’s social structure and constructed around it a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach to dog training. In Mr. Millan’s world, dog behavioral problems result from a failure of the human to be the “pack leader,” to dominate the dog (a wolf by any other name) completely.

While Mr. Millan rejects hitting and yelling at dogs during training, his confrontational methods include physical and psychological intimidation, like finger jabs, choke collars, extended sessions on a treadmill and what is called flooding, or overwhelming the animal with the thing it fears. Compared with some training devices still in use — whips and cattle prods, for example — these are mild, but combined with a lack of positive reinforcement or rewards, they place Mr. Millan firmly in a long tradition of punitive dog trainers.

Mr. Millan brings his pastiche of animal behaviorism and pop psychology into millions of homes a week. He’s a charming, one-man wrecking ball directed at 40 years of progress in understanding and shaping dog behavior and in developing nonpunitive, reward-based training programs, which have led to seeing each dog as an individual, to understand what motivates it, what frightens it and what its talents and limitations are. Building on strengths and working around and through weaknesses, these trainers and specialists in animal behavior often work wonders with their dogs, but it takes time.

Mr. Millan supposedly delivers fast results. His mantra is “exercise, discipline, affection,” where discipline means “rules, boundaries, limitations.” Rewards are absent and praise scarce, presumably because they will upset the state of calm submission Mr. Millan wants in his dogs. Corrections abound as animals are forced to submit or face their fear, even if doing so panics them.

Mr. Millan builds his philosophy from a simplistic conception of the dog’s “natural” pack, controlled by a dominant alpha animal (usually male). In his scheme, that leader is the human, which leads to the conclusion that all behavior problems in dogs derive from the failure of the owner or owners to dominate. (Conveniently, by this logic, if Mr. Millan’s intervention doesn’t produce lasting results, it is the owner’s fault.)

Women are the worst offenders in his world. In one of the outtakes included in the four-DVD set of the first season of “Dog Whisperer,” Mr. Millan explains that a woman is “the only species that is wired different from the rest.” And a “woman always applies affection before discipline,” he says. “Man applies discipline then affection, so we’re more psychological than emotional. All animals follow dominant leaders; they don’t follow lovable leaders.”

Mr. Millan’s sexism is laughable; his ethology is outdated.

The notion of the “alpha pack leader” dominating all other pack members is derived from studies of captive packs of unrelated wolves and thus bears no relationship to the social structure of natural packs, according to L. David Mech, one of the world’s leading wolf experts. In the wild, the alpha wolves are merely the breeding pair, and the pack is generally comprised of their juvenile offspring and pups.

“The typical wolf pack,” Dr. Mech wrote in The Canadian Journal of Zoology in 1999, “is a family, with the adult parents guiding the activities of a group in a division-of-labor system.” In a natural wolf pack, “dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all,” he writes.

That’s a far cry from the dominance model that Mr. Millan attributes to the innate need of dogs by way of wolves.
Unlike their wolf forebears, dogs exist in human society. They have been selectively bred for 15,000 or more years to live with people. Studies have shown that almost from birth they are attentive to people, and that most are eager to please, given proper instruction and encouragement.

But sometimes the relationship goes very wrong, and it is time to call on a professional.

Aggression is perhaps the most significant of the behavioral problems that may afflict more than 20 percent of the nation’s 65 million dogs, because it can lead to injury and death. Mr. Millan often treats aggression by forcing the dog to exercise extensively on a treadmill, by asserting his authority over the dog by rolling it on its back in the “alpha rollover,” and through other forms of intimidation, including exposure to his pack of dogs.

Forcefully rolling a big dog on its back was once recommended as a way to establish dominance, but it is now recognized as a good way to get bitten. People are advised not to try it. In fact, many animal behaviorists believe that in the long run meeting aggression with aggression breeds more aggression.

More important, aggression often has underlying medical causes that might not be readily apparent — hip dysplasia or some other hidden physical ailment that causes the dog to bite out of pain; hereditary forms of sudden rage that require a medical history and genealogy to diagnose; inadequate blood flow to the brain or a congenital brain malformation that produces aggression and can only be uncovered through a medical examination. Veterinary behaviorists, having found that many aggressive dogs suffer from low levels of serotonin, have had success in treating such dogs with fluoxetine (the drug better known as Prozac).

Properly treating aggression, phobias, anxiety and fears from the start can literally save time and money. Mr. Millan’s quick fix might make for good television and might even produce lasting results in some cases. But it flies in the face of what professional animal behaviorists — either trained and certified veterinarians or ethologists — have learned about normal and abnormal behavior in dogs.

Killme00

I think the show is good with some good ideas. I agree that Discipline should be paramount in living with a dog but i wouldnt instill that discipline by pinning my dog to the floor to show i am boss. I have found crate training and working for rewards to be a great way of training my dog.

cowzerp

All he does is keep the dog in a calm state and then its open to listen to your commands, its the best i've seen and i reccommend it to anyone, he got a crazy dog that was terrified of people even its owners to be confident around people in 1 day just by gaining trust of the dog and letting it know people meant no harm! i bet you never even watched it fits, as he never hurts the animals. that article is making it out that he harms the dogs! he saves bad socialised dogs from been put down..

peasant

hamnegg wrote: »

Thanks for all your feedback. He barks anytime he hears the neighbours out the back or a car out the front! The lad is nuts!

I assume that means you are actually around when it happens?

In that case it's relatively easy ...

Anticipate the next time he's going to bark (you have ears as well), let him have one "woof", praise him for doing his job and then shut him up.


Ok ...it's going to take a bit longer than just that, but that's the basic idea. It is the dog's job to announce disturbances ...but not to be one himself.

The difficult bit is to make him stop once he starts


Believe it or not ...the easiest way of doing so, is to actually teach him to "speak".

Arm yourself with goodies, and the next time he barks, you name the command "speak" (or whatever) and stuff a goodie into him.(which shuts him up). Repeat this a few times. Soon he will bark at you like mad, hoping for more goodies. (which are not forthcoming)

Now you tell him "quiet" and as soon as he stops ...the next goodie is due (make sure to repeat the word "quiet" while you give it)

Now you can alternate between "speak" and "quiet" always re-inforcing proper fulfilment of the command with a goodie. Make sure you time it right and only to feed him when he does it quickly and properly.

Then phase out the "speak" bit and the goodies ...and you're there:D


Every now and then ...feed him a surprise treat when he's followed your "quiet" command ...just to keep the hope alive that every "quiet" might be followed by a treat.

But always make sure to praise him when he shuts up and especially on those occassions where he doesn't even start (even though the neighbours are making noises).

peasant

cowzerp wrote: »

All he does is keep the dog in a calm state and ..... gaining trust of the dog and letting it know people meant no harm! ..

cowzerp

He does no such things!

I've seen two of his programmes (one more than I needed to) and all he does is force dogs into submission.

The way he does it is that he uses the element of surprise. He comes in as a stranger and uses the cautious approach that most dogs display towards strangers to his full advantage. He goes in, all guns blazing, with a dominant/agressive stance, takes no sh!t from the dog and just uses brute force. With his "excercise" programme he does two things ...he tires the dogs out to the point where they can't resist anymore and also quickly establishes himself as one not to be messed with.

Then with the truly terrified and exhausted dog, he shows the owner how easy that dog is to manipulate, puts the blame firmly into the owner's court and then fecks off.

After he's gone, the dog of course soon reverts to its old self and the circle starts from fresh.


One day it will all end in tears anyway ...he will meet that one dog that will not be prepared to be dominated by him an catch him out. Depending on the size of that dog, that then might be the end of his programme ...forever.

SuzyS1972

Please god your right Peasant
I concur with yourself and Fits
I hate the man - he forces the dogs into submission and hey he's magic.
Saw one of his programmes recently where he was literally kicking a collie when it was exited to go out for a walk and was jumping up at the door.

The poor animal was terrified and sat still and the owners thought it was great - the lady of the house kind of questioned the kicking and Milan said something along the lines of him needing to learn to have respect..........gimme patience.

animaladvice

The spray collar won't work in the long term. Anything bought like that out of Argos won't be effective.

Go to a Vet's and get a thing called "DAP Dog Appeasing Pheromone Electric Diffuser" Plug it into the room he is in most of the time and this will calm him down.

Why not hire a dog walker to bring him out while your at work. Dogs are really sociable and need attention all the time. That would take the stress of you trying to walk him.

Don't use sprays or any of the other methods suggested above. These won't stop the barking. Check out the DAP diffuser and i guarantee you it will work.

hamnegg wrote: »

Thanks for all your feedback. He barks anytime he hears the neighbours out the back or a car out the front! The lad is nuts!

Going to get him the snip. I don't let him roam the streets anyway but if he ever did the last thing needed is a litter of unwanted pups. He is out of a shelter himself.

Put the spray collar on him last night and he was quiet. I probably don't excercise him enough which i'm going to have to do more regular.

TheB

animaladvice wrote: »

Don't use sprays or any of the other methods suggested above. These won't stop the barking.

Um. Some of the methods outlined above work very very well to stop barking actually - especially Peasants method of teaching the speak. I'm sure the DAP diffuser might calm the dog down (I don't know very much about them) but what about the root cause.. he's barking for a reason.

OP - you're right to exercise more.. try some training to stimulate his mind too (perhaps try to get to a training class - it's fun and useful, the dogs love it) .. my dogs used to be knackered and sleep like logs after classes as they have to think lots! Monday night(doggy school night) was the most peaceful night of the week!

Good luck

Bx

LuckyStar

I don't like Cesar Milan at all, he just uses brute force.

I would like to see him try training horses, whatever about dogs, but with horses, you HAVE to be able to deal with them on a psychological level. You have to, because unlike most dogs, you are not going to be strong enough to just roll them over and pin them down!

lurchin along

I wish you were right about the horses Lucky Star,in my travels I've had occassion to visit a number of 'sites'-you know what I mean?-and I've SEEN horses punched,whipped and pulled to the ground in the interests of "teaching the b......" to behave.Makes me sick thinking of it.

LuckyStar

they are idiots to treat a horse like that, they will be trusting that same horse to bring them safely through traffic that he may find frightening, if he gets scared and doesn't trust them he could well decide to just do what he thinks is right, which could easily be to bolt, rather than listen to whoever is guiding him. Which wouldn't be a very good idea anyway let alone if the horse was wearing blinkers. It's all about trust with horses, and respect.

dizzydub

We had a dog trainer up because our neighbours complained about our dog barking. She got us to get jif lemon squeezy bottles and empty them and put water in them. Then we'd to leave him out and anytime he barked he got squirted. It seems to have worked but we still have an issue when we're out. It'll take time but I think in the long term it'll work. You should give it a go