So our little foster dog Sadie has this super fun (insert sarcasm here) bark that she gets carried away with when she is excited or alerting to some sound (or if Beanie has alerted to a sound she has to join in). It's the kind of bark that goes up your spine and if left to continue on it's incessant path has the potential to make your ears bleed!
I have begun working on her with this using a combination of body blocking and rewarding quiet behavior. I have had the most success so far in keeping her quiet when she is on the other side of the gate from us while we are eating. At dinner time I take a tupperware dish with kibble or broken pieces of biscuit and every few seconds, if she's been quiet, i'll toss her a piece. I have been able to progress with this pretty quickly to every few minutes tossing her a piece of food and dinner time is blissfully quiet again!
To help her regain composure when she sees something out the window, I use body blocks to remover her from the window and when she is quiet I reward her. I also give her something else to concentrate on like a rope toy or simply a handful of food tossed on the floor! Whatever keeps her quiet and occupied! This is proving a little more difficult as visual stimulus is more difficult for her and Beanie can be an instigator!
Today when I had Little Bear's mom come pick him up I took a baggie of dog kibble out with me and while I was talking to her I would toss a small handful of kibble up onto the deck where Sadie was watching us from, as long as she was quiet. She did really well and settled down wonderfully. She's a smart little girl and will be quick to learn. She may always alarm bark but my goal is to make her easy to shut off with a simple "quiet" or "enough" command. After all It's nice to have dogs that let you know something or someone is outside!
