# Barking help please!!



## Emily12345 (Nov 23, 2014)

Hi all, 

We adopted a 6 month old cockapoo boy 4 weeks ago. He is show cocker mum, mini poodle dad. He is our second dog – we currently have a 2 yr old mini labradoodle girl. We have already started puppy classes with Henry and he’s responding well to training. 

However – we do have one issue we cannot seem to combat and that is his barking. I’ve started a bark diary it’s got so bad and I’ve had to ply the neighbours with wine and chocolates to apologise. 

In short- he settles really well at night. Sleeps fine- we can get up in the night and no peep from him at all. 

As soon as he hears me and my husband get up at 6.20am for our morning walk, he’s off! He will bark between 4 and 7 times whilst we are upstairs and it increases as we come down the stairs to the kitchen door. We wait at the door until we hear ten seconds of complete silence (in between barking, whining and door scratching). We will open the door and if he barks again, we shut it immediately. This morning it took around 5 mins and 3 door open and closes before we could get into the kitchen in silence and he still let out one bark, which we sharply said no to. 

He does this when we arrive home from work or when the dog walker comes in. and the exact same process happens on both side of the door (him scratching and whining and barking) – us waiting for quiet. 

We ignored our labradoodle in the night when she was a very little pup and she rarely barks. 

We have tried putting him in time out – but he still came out excited and just played with our second dog as if nothing had happened. 

He’s a pretty pushy attention seeking dog – he will jump straight up on our laps, but we wonder if that’s just him still settling in. He had a great start in life (one dog household, older couple, looked after well as far as we could tell – they just had deteriorating health and so felt it wasn’t fair on him.)

He gets fed in the morning and evening and gets two walks a day without fail – 30 mins off lead in the morning and 1 hour off lead at lunchtime. He is becoming more independent in the house – will now sleep in a separate room and won’t be under our feet 100% of the time, more like 50-60% now!

Either way – we want to combat this barking. He doesn’t seem to do it much during the day (only once or twice at the postman which is acceptable!). 

I would really appreciate any advice you can give as we are really struggling with this at the moment and finding it hard to know what to do or where to turn!

Thanks all in advance! 

Emily


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## sugerlump (Oct 6, 2012)

well i don't know how to stop dog from barking cause ginger does it.but i can tell you a trick i learned from my son.and that is to teach your dog ,,SHUSH,i put my finger to my lips and say shush,and she will bark very low ,it took me about three weeks to teach her this and lots of good snacks.but she finely got the hang of it .no if she barks at some one at the door i just do the shush thing with the finger and she will still bark but very low ,and i keep my finger there for some time and do the shush and make it a long shush.and don't for get to look her right in the eye ok .try it see if it works for you ,,,can't hurt ok good luck


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## Marzi (Sep 17, 2012)

It sounds to me as if your pup is doing very well considering the changes he has had to go through, but you are also so right to want to address this problem from the get go.

Good luck though because barking is a THING 
Both of my 'poos discovered their voices around the 6 month mark - suddenly they would bark at strange noises in the night, or the dawn chorus or at weird tree stumps/plastic bags caught in fences etc.
I did teach mine to bark on command, Kiki thinks this is pointless and generally can't be bothered - she would much rather bark at a pigeon on the lawn  but both Inzi and Dot will bark along to _How much is that Doggy in the Window_, to do this well they also have to stop barking on command. My bark signal is my thumb and forefinger opening and shutting like a bird's beak and my stop is an open hand held low towards them (similar to a stay or wait except that is held high). 
I do use a clicker to mark behaviour I want when training and this works very well for Dot.
That said Dot barks in frustration and for attention too - for example at training if another dog is on the floor she will, if she can, sit in front of me - eyeball me - and yip with an ear shredding quality  in this situation I use the lead to take her behind my chair, completely avoiding eye contact or any verbal comment. The alternative would be to throw her out of the window  When I'm preparing her food if she does this yip I immediately stop and walk away, when she is quiet I put her on 'her spot' in the utility room where she will be fed (when it is ready) and go back to preparing... if she moves or yaps we repeat.
So barking is still a work in progress 
keep bribing the neighbours - you can condition them to expect wine after every bark 
I wonder if a baby gate rather than closed door might be better as then it would be easier to see and reward calm quiet behaviour or give a sit command before he starts digging to get through the gate.

Re the lap jumping - obviously he was a lap dog at his old house and expects to be welcomed onto a knee. If your other dog is not a sofa/lap dog I would immediately start training him an off command and only ever allow him up on command.
Have to say Kiki would claim a lap as soon as it materialised!


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## bearthecockapoo (Mar 17, 2015)

Teaching a 'quiet' command is a great idea. I had started this with Bear and it was coming along, but I didn't keep up the training as well as I should have and now he sometimes whines (never barks) for attention. I found that more exercise and lots of toys to keep him busy (especially a Kong or other toys where he has to try to forage to get the treat out) keep the whining at bay and he seems to care less about needing attention from us.


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## Annabellam (Nov 3, 2015)

The quiet command works perfectly fine if you achieve it. You definitely need to give it a try sometime and teach everyone else in your family how it works. It took sometime to train Sammy but he finally got the hang of it. The problem i had is that i would teach him the the rest of my relatives would not use it so he would unlearn. Treats also work in rewarding good behaviour. Also read this article,http://www.humanesociety.org/animal...barking.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/ I hope you get all the help you need.


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## Lexi&Beemer (May 5, 2013)

I thought my two were bad. Then I had a doggie play date with a friend's pair. The puppy who was a 10 month old sheltie barked so much my two barely made a sound for the first hour or two. 


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