Early Morning Barking

The_Honeybadger

Hello. We have a small rescue terrier that has developed a very frustrating habit of early morning barking over the past two weeks.

She gets a walk every day before work at around 7.00am but lately she has started barking any time from 6.00am onwards. She doesn’t appear to need a comfort break, I think she is just ready to go for her walk and is looking for somebody to get up.

She sleeps downstairs on the sofa and if the kitchen door is mistakenly left open when the last person is going to bed she will actually come upstairs and bark outside the bedroom door now as well. She does have a crate but she much prefers the sofa, I suppose I can crate her at night to solve this problem if I have to.

The barking is another story, she is waking the whole house and probably the neighbours too as we are in a semi D. I really need to put a stop to it. Haven’t been able to find much practical advice on Google. Has anybody here dealt with something similar?

MrMusician18

Those anti bark collars work well

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509151#Comment_119509151

Had a look at those but a few of the trainers I follow on FB say they are cruel and stress the dogs out, but at this stage I’d nearly try anything.

Is there a particular one that works well? I don’t think our girl had the best start in life so there is no way I’ll use a shock collar or anything that causes pain.

tk123

Will she sleep if you let her into your room?

D3V!L

Its attention seeking. We had this with our dog and the only way to stop it was a training collar.

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509415#Comment_119509415

No she will jump up and down on the bed and wince / bark until somebody gets up.

She sheds everywhere so we generally don’t let her upstairs and she didn’t have much interest in coming up until all this started recently.

She is perfectly happy sleeping downstairs and doesn’t want to sleep with people. I don’t think that is what you were asking but just thought I’d clarify.

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509429#Comment_119509429

You are probably right. I see they vary greatly in price from about €20 upwards. Does anybody know anything about them?

fryup

why not use the anti bark collar in the morning, and take it off for the rest of the day

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509772#Comment_119509772

Yea I think I’ll try that. There is no real issue with her during the day so it won’t be needed once she is up and about.

I’ll try the pet shop and see what they have in stock, the ultrasonic ones look like the most humane so I’ll see if they have one of those

fryup

and report back and tell us if they work (i'd like to know for future reference)

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509849#Comment_119509849

Will do

D3V!L

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509620#Comment_119509620

There's a lot of cheap ones around and to be honest I wouldn't trust them.

We used an automatic one from Pet Safe but found it didn't work well for our lad as it reset to the lowest static setting after a while.

I got the same one but with a remote and its been great. He was barking constantly and this has knocked it completely on the head.

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119509923#Comment_119509923

If you can find it online would you mind posting a link or PM me if it is no trouble

Thanks

Faith

Fundamentally, she keeps barking because it works. You keep responding. The best course of action is to totally ignore it. Eventually the behaviour will stop because it doesn’t gain her anything.

Take a couple of days, ideally over a weekend. Inform the neighbours and give them a bottle of wine as an advance apology. Make absolutely sure the kitchen door is closed at night and then just DO NOTHING when the barking starts. Don’t get up, don’t respond verbally, don’t even get out of bed for a wee. Expect the barking to get worse before it gets better, and on pain of death, do not go near her until she is totally settled again.

We went through similar with our puppy wanting to get up earlier than us, and we made the mistake of responding which only enforced the behaviour and made it harder to extinguish. It look a bit of patience and lost sleep but it resolved within 2 days.

It’ll be important to keeping bringing her for a walk as soon as you do get up, so she learns that the walks happens even when she’s quiet.

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119510682#Comment_119510682

Thanks for the reply. What you are saying makes sense but I don’t always respond though, initially I did go down to ensure she was ok but most mornings I ignore it and let her bark and she does settle eventually, but the second she hears movement upstairs she is off again and by the time I get halfway down the stairs she is going berserk.

It would be quite difficult to get the timing right to enforce the message that keeping quiet will get her what she wants because I just can’t envisage a situation where she stays quiet until I get to her. I could try denying her the walk for a couple of mornings but I find if she doesn’t get that morning exercise she can get a bit disruptive and and even destructive during the day.

When we got her from the rescue she was completely untrained, didn’t know any commands, didn’t know how to walk on a leash and didn’t know how to play with toys etc. We have had to put a lot of work in to her training and we were going well enough until this started.

The_Honeybadger

@tphase she is three or four years old, hard to say as the rescue had no info in relation to where she came from. She was more or less dumped from what I was told.

Faith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119511420#Comment_119511420

So in this instance, stand outside the closed door until she stops barking. Even if it’s only for a couple of seconds that she stops barking, that’s enough. Dogs only associate what they’ve been doing for about the past 2 seconds with your response, so if you walk in whilst she’s barking, it’s reinforcing barking, and if you walk in whilst she’s quiet, it reinforces quietness.

I know it’s hard, really. We’ve been through it all with our puppy and it’s an ongoing battle. It sounds like you’re doing brilliantly! It might be worth following AniEd on Instagram, or looking at Reddit.com/r/puppy101 for non-aversive training methods. Positive reinforcement and redirection will get you there with consistency. Anti bark collars might reduce barking, but will likely increase fear and anxiety which may manifest problems in different ways down the line.

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119512943#Comment_119512943

Brilliant advice thank you. I was reluctant to try the collar anyway. I’ll see how this goes.

em_cat

Op, it seems to me that you may need to crate her, that would be a better option than an anti bark collar, first, a dogs only voice is the bark and you are trying to silence it for simply trying to do the same thing a baby would do if it wants attention, would you put an anti scream collar on it?

Secondly, you have a terrier, it’s very much in their nature to be alert, she may be wanting attention, she may need to eliminate or she may be worried. At any rate, crating as long as she is comfy and it doesn’t create stress for her is a far better way to change the behavior rather than putting a collar that shocks, blows air or gives of a pungent smell of citronella is kind of cruel especially given the dog has absolutely no idea why thing around their neck is doing what it does.

Will add though, if when crated she shows any signs of discomfort , shutting down or fear, then she needs to be crate trained which is a process, but the rewards pay off tenfold.

Also don’t worry about your neighbors, they’ll get over it just like people get over a screaming newborn.

em_cat

Also +1 for AniEd.

The_Honeybadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119522360#Comment_119522360

I did say that I was reluctant to use the collar and absolutely would not use a shock collar or the spray type. I was considering an ultrasonic one but I am going to exhaust other options first

I am trying the method recorded by @Faith and I am already seeing some progress

She is already crate trained but she much prefers to sleep on the sofa, I’d prefer not to refine her to the crate, it shouldn’t be necessary