One of the most prevalent reasons for neighbour disputes is because of having a noisy dog, constantly barking, right across your dividing fence and having the neighbour refusing to take the dog to dog obedience training to fix the problem.
Ask me, I know. Some people just do not want to know that their dog is causing a problem.
In my case, my neighbour’s dog was a dog that fired up when he heard us open the front door of our house at 6am and then, thereafter, anybody walking on our gravel driveway set him off again. He could not see us, just hearing us was enough.
If you do not have a dog that has gone through a full obedience training course, the chances are you may well have a dog that barks uncontrollably.
Dogs bark for lots of reasons:
•To warn strangers
•To say hello
•To say P**** off
•To talk to his neighbours and the moon
•Just because he can
•Because he is bored
•Because he is excited
•Because he is lonely
•To protect his bone
A dog that is lonely, bored or stressed is most likely to become a problem barker, so the first thing you need to establish is why is the dog barking.
Stressed dogs are usually suffering from separation anxiety. You need to desensitise the dog to your leaving him alone. Very often this dog will start barking as soon as you close the door on your way out.
You need to count to 10 and then open the door and go up to the dog, talk to him calmly, pat him, maybe give him a quick tug game, and then leave the room again. Count to 10 and repeat.
You can extend the time out of the room fairly quickly but be aware that if the dog starts barking, you have left the room for too long and need to go back a few steps.
Once the dog is not barking immediately after you leave the room, I would start ping ponging the time I am away from the dog.
What I mean by this is I would leave the dog for 10 seconds, and the next time 30 seconds, then back to 10 seconds. The next maybe 2 minutes, then 5 minutes and back to 10 seconds. This would leave the dog not knowing how long you are going to be a way but starting to understand that you do always come back.
A dog that is barking because he is bored or lonely needs to have some serious exercise just before being left alone. If you have access to a swimming pool or a spot in a river, lake or beach, then a 10 minute swim is equivalent to a 10 kilometre walk.
A dog, properly obedience trained, will retrieve a ball for you. If you have a nearby field where you can throw the ball, using a “Chuckit” or a tennis racket for 10 minutes will give your pooch plenty of exercise.
If you can throw the ball up hill, this will increase the level of effort the dog has to put into the session.
A physically exhausted dog is going to go to sleep for quite some time as soon as he gets back home.
When he does eventually wake up, he must then have some interesting toys to engage his attention until the urge to have another snooze comes along.
Kongs filled with peanut butter, holy rollers with a ball or pill bottle with a marble in it inside, a tugger tied to a tree or anything else your dog finds it fun to interact with are perfect.
Author Resource:
Nev Allen is a dog trainer with 30 years of experience and he is now sharing this experience to help you make your puppy a good, happy and well trained obedient dog. Visit my blog for more detailed dog obedience training and clicker training articles. http:www.dogobediencetrainingblogs.com
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