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Quit that Dam barking!

Posted November 28th, 2009 by 3ACDpups
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Hey everyone,

We have a small dam on our property, and for some reason every time our dogs go for a swim in it, one of our dogs continuously barks at the other(s). Ronnie, who does the barking, will jump in the water, but then comes out onto the bank and spends most of her time irritatingly barking at Dax, who spends the entire time swimming around in circles. When I come over and tell Ronnie to be quiet, she, for the most part, listens and stops barking. As soon as I leave she's back to that monotonous kind of barking...over and over and over again. I can't understand why she is barking and don't quite know how to go about getting her to stop without me standing their the whole time telling her "that's enough".

Ronnie is a pretty jealous dog....for instance if i'm in the yard doing training with Dax, Ronnie will do that annoying barking for the entire time, and does not stop when I tell her to......my poor neighbors!!! Any help would be great!!

Comments

re: Quit that Dam barking!

Aidan's picture
On November 30th, 2009 Aidan says:

Typical herding dog, wants to have a say in what the other animals are doing!

I have one of these in a class at the moment (a Border Collie). Our approach (surprise, surprise) has been to teach him what we would like him to do instead of standing around barking. Dogs like this need a job to do or they find their own job as "site foreman".

Everything we teach him to do has to be done quietly. Say we're working on recalls, if he barks during a recall we ignore him, even if it was a good recall. He has a few behaviours like this, including just sitting and waiting quietly.

You have to be realistic about duration. If he is to sit waiting quietly, we wouldn't expect him to sit forever waiting quietly. We know at some point he will end up barking, so we do a short sit and wait, then move, have him heel into a different position.

I would suggest if you are working with another dog, you either put him inside or teach him to go to a mat and wait quietly. Don't make him wait too long, you could even teach him to go to two mats and send him from mat to mat, or send him around a pole then back to his meet. Keep him busy, give him a job to do. If you can teach him to carry something around that would be really good, his mouth will be full.

When you're down at the dam, maybe just chuck a ball for him while your other dogs swim? Or would they all want to join in? You get the idea though - keep him busy, give him something specific to do.

The Border Collie in my class is going off to do some herding classes. That might also be a good activity for your dogs.

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

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