Fence barking Molly

The trouble starts when the next door dogs (2) come outside. They bark at her incessantly (she is desexed), which in turn has now made MOLLY bark every time they are outside. She now thinks it is a game and plays and barks at the fence. The owners very rarely come out to stop their dogs barking (they believe dogs should be allowed to bark), where as we usually end up having to bring MOLLY inside, which I think is unfair. When those dogs are not around, our MOLLY never barks. We have paling fences and a few trees surrounding that area but that doesn’t seem to work. Hope you have some idea of how we may address this problem because it is driving me mad.

Comments

Aidan's picture

Teaching an alternative behavior to barking

Hi Kirsty, this is a really tough problem. It is possible to solve just about any behavior problem, but sometimes the lengths you need to go to make it seem unrealistic. I have a similar problem at home with a neighbour's dog. Thankfully the neighbours are very helpful and between us the problem is only very minor now.

The e-course does actually provide the solution to some extent, but it is difficult to determine what is reinforcing Molly's barking. It is probably just "allelomimetic behavior", which basically means she is just joining in. This leaves us with the problem that you won't be able to remove the reinforcer.

However, you will be able to provide a different reinforcer for an alternative behavior. You could teach her to bark exactly 3 times then be quiet as per the door-knock example in the e-course, or you could teach her to come to the back door (where you will be able to reinforce her). The Treat-n-Train is excellent for this sort of thing, because you can sit it outside and just hit the button when you need to reward, rather than getting up from whatever you are doing. The Treat-n-Train has recently been re-released under a new name, I forget what they have called it now.

If you are careful to build your alternative behavior up through a range of distractions and getting it really strong before you attempt it while the other dogs are barking, you should be able to set Molly up for success. Don't jump the gun! It is important that you build a strong behavior with controlled distractions first.

Regards,
Aidan
http://www.positivepetzine.com