Concerned about barking
Should I be concerned about Toki's amount of barking?
Ahhh...this is a topic I've discussed before with several people and on this thread, but his barking is escalating and I'm lost at how to help him. I'm still frustrated. Im obviously failing him in some way.
I've read the thread about barking, but I'm still confused. I get that he is barking in his own self interest, and obviously he is getting something out of it or else he wouldn't do it. He never barks when he wants attention or when he sees other animals, even dogs. I am pretty sure he is doing a high pitched, prey barking. He barks out of confidence, not fear, it's obvious by his body posture and where he positions himself. He does this bark-howl-growl combo.
We go on outings every week, usually every other day or several times a week at minimum. I give him tons of praise for being quite and i don't correct him for barking, just ignore. I feel reminanding would just reinforce his barking or add to the frustration he is feeling.
I have noticed that in my hometown, in the country, he doesn't bark near as much.
For example, people play volleyball outside, he will bark for 20-30 minutes until I stop him.
We will be in a parking lot, and he will bark at the people minding their own business.
It's hard to go on walks. People are super interested in him and want to know more, but I can't carry a conversation without his barking.
My questions would be:
-is this a really long fear period? He is 6.5 months
-does he not see me as a strong leader, or rather, does he see me as weak so he has to compensate? (he does follow all the commands I give him and walks well on a leash, for the most part anyway)
-is he just very, very protective and/territorial?
-should I be concerned that this could get worse and one day lead to an unprovoked bite?
-is my dog not socialized enough?
Its not "my AKITA barks, is this normal?" but rather "is there a failure on my part, so much he has turned to barking at many things, every day?"
Thanks in advanced. Sorry if this seems repetive or long. I'm on the run and I don't have time to reread and make shorter.
Julia
Ahhh...this is a topic I've discussed before with several people and on this thread, but his barking is escalating and I'm lost at how to help him. I'm still frustrated. Im obviously failing him in some way.
I've read the thread about barking, but I'm still confused. I get that he is barking in his own self interest, and obviously he is getting something out of it or else he wouldn't do it. He never barks when he wants attention or when he sees other animals, even dogs. I am pretty sure he is doing a high pitched, prey barking. He barks out of confidence, not fear, it's obvious by his body posture and where he positions himself. He does this bark-howl-growl combo.
We go on outings every week, usually every other day or several times a week at minimum. I give him tons of praise for being quite and i don't correct him for barking, just ignore. I feel reminanding would just reinforce his barking or add to the frustration he is feeling.
I have noticed that in my hometown, in the country, he doesn't bark near as much.
For example, people play volleyball outside, he will bark for 20-30 minutes until I stop him.
We will be in a parking lot, and he will bark at the people minding their own business.
It's hard to go on walks. People are super interested in him and want to know more, but I can't carry a conversation without his barking.
My questions would be:
-is this a really long fear period? He is 6.5 months
-does he not see me as a strong leader, or rather, does he see me as weak so he has to compensate? (he does follow all the commands I give him and walks well on a leash, for the most part anyway)
-is he just very, very protective and/territorial?
-should I be concerned that this could get worse and one day lead to an unprovoked bite?
-is my dog not socialized enough?
Its not "my AKITA barks, is this normal?" but rather "is there a failure on my part, so much he has turned to barking at many things, every day?"
Thanks in advanced. Sorry if this seems repetive or long. I'm on the run and I don't have time to reread and make shorter.
Julia
Comments
Ignoring is not going to be enough as he's getting his own positive reinforcement. You'll have to remove him from the situation. I think negative punishment is the term for this tactic.
Myself, I would use positive punishment but it's frowned upon by most on this list.
He's an adolescent now, and I do believe there is a fear period that comes along right about this time, too, so I'd suspect that's a lot of what is going on. he may enjoy barking (as ayk notes, some dogs do--esp. GSDs! been there before!) But since this is similar to what happened with my AA, I suspect its more that he's a bit apprehensive of strangers and so he's barking.
My boy was never much of a barker, and seemed pretty amiable and not at all afraid of people. He's not a confident outgoing dog either--more just a cautious one, who likes to scope things out before he make a decision. Not fearful, just cautious.
Then he was 6 months old. And BIG. And suddenly, walking was a struggle. He began to pull on the leash which he hadn't done before, and then he started barking at strangers like crazy. And because he's big, it's intimidating (and kind of embarrassing). So our what I did was to distract him. When I saw he was tensing up because he saw someone, I got out his favorite toy (a tiny squeaky duck) and gave it to him to squeak. He loves this toy, and can't resist it, and so instead of barking, he'd squeak his toy like mad, and it seemed to both distract him and calm him, and in the meantime we'd keep walking and be past the person. Of course, if you boy isn't toy motivated this isn't going to work, but I think the basic idea that you can distract him while getting him past the scary thing may help calm him some. It's possible it's not fear, but honestly, I've never yet had a dog who barked at people who wasn't reacting out of fear/anxiety, so I'd suspect that's the case here too.
The thing is, it passed, too. (Well, sadly, we've not yet gone back to the days of loose leash walking). I still take his toy to distract him in case something freaks him out, but now he's not nearly as likely to bark at people while we're on a walk. He does, however, bark a lot more in the yard now, and like your boy, if he sees someone doing something, he'll pretty much just keep barking. I haven't really tried to work on that though. All the dogs in my neighborhood are like that, and we don't have regular yards or anything, so it's not like he's barking at people out in their yards. But if people were to stand, say, out in a driveway where he can see them, he'll bark til they leave, and I guess I just don't care about that enough to even try to do anything about it.
(Though I'd be interested in hearing how people to do deal with that).
Sometimes the "threat" is routine neighbor noise, or passersby, and I can't control that, and the dog is frustrated since he cant "fix it" himself, so the barking can sometimes then turn into an evenly spaced repetitive alert bark. I will interrupt this pattern and sometimes it requires me investigating the source and walking him away from it. When this happens, I KNOW there really is something that he is not comfortable with, so I think the best management for this is to let the dog know you recognize his concern. I go out and look, and I tell him "thank you", or "that's enough" and take him away from the source of concern (like if my neighbor is working on the fence, the only thing I can do to relieve the dog is taking him to his kennel).
It has gotten to the point where I can "hush him" aka "Grym, enough", and he is very responsive to that. It doesn't always work, but he knows I have addressed his concern and that really alleviates most of it.
With your dog, ignoring it isnt going to fix it in every circumstance. With attention seeking barking, that may work, but alert barking, no. I think if you were to show the dog that you see what it is that concerns him, thank him for drawing your attention to it, and then show him it isn't a big deal, or resolve it (by walking the other direction for instance, or distraction) that will help.
We need some work on me touching his collar when he's excited anyway, because twice in two weeks he snapped at me when he was very worked up about something and I grabbed his collar to pull him away (it wasn't a big deal--as soon as he realized what he did he looked at me like "oh no!" and he came with me quite willingly, but he still shouldn't be doing it, so we're working on me grabbing the collar is good right now, and I can see doing this when he's aroused/excited is something else we need to work on, so this will help with two problem areas).
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Of course, she's all bark & no bite. Her tail will be wagging, & if I pick her up she stops barking & the person pets her her tail will go a million miles a minute...put her down...& she acts like the person she was barking at his her new best friend. No more barking & all loving on them, initiating play, etc.
However, it doesn't solve the problem from her barking from afar. I've just sort of accepted this is the way she is, & that's fine. It's just a part of her hunting instinct lol ~
As Lindsay mentioned, acknowledging whatever is triggering will help. If I see a bicyclist approaching us, I'll say something like "Yep, that's a bike" in a happy voice, and that can be enough to keep him from crossing the threshold. Or if he starts to pull toward a person and his hackles go up, I tell him to "Leave it" and pull away or cross the road. I wouldn't just leave him and expect the barking to stop eventually, since barking in and of itself is reinforcing.
Carry treats with you when you go out, and reward/praise if you can walk past something that normally triggers Toki but he doesn't bark. Try not to give him opportunities to bark, which could mean crossing the road when you see something "scary". More socialization will help, so try to meet friendly strangers given he isn't barking at them, or invite people over to your house for him to meet.
Don't give up hope! I know how easy it is to get discouraged, especially when people are giving you dirty looks because your dog is barking at them, or barking at their dog.
What are the opinions on teaching a dog to "speak" and then to "not speak" to control the barking?
I am hesitant because people have told me to never teach your dog to speak or else they will do it all the time, but then, Toki already barks all the time. But then again, I'm open to suggestions and taking in everything and considering it an option.
In brain storming here (and it would take time and dedication) maybe when they start the barking come in with the "quiet" command distracting them from/coming in between them and the "thing that needs barked at" and when they break attention from what they are barking at and turn to you and "quiet" (with eye contact etc. but focused on you, maybe even with a "lay down") give the goodie/reward etc... ????
I grew up with rough collies and currently have a GSD and collies! Both barkey breeds really but the shepherd in my opinion is quiet compared to the collies!
So hears my experience. One of my collies growing up had developed a pretty bad "fear" bark, due to lack of socialization. We got I'm around 5 months, and during his fear stage he started to bark at people and it never got corrected. Of course the problem got worse and worse . . . It got to be very hard to walk him.(not fun at all!) During this time in his life I had just moved out of my parents house for school, so the dog didn't get any correction or training. So he had a couple years of this barking behaviour. (in the backyard he barked at everything, and on walks every person, bike, rollerblades ect. . .)
Anyways I moved back home and worked with guy. The problems corrected now, this is what I did for this dog.
So on walks at the beginning, I did distractive training with treats, I'd make him 'come' to me and sit, then I'd treat him, or come to me and 'down' then treat, numerous times when a 'distraction' was going by us.
I am a runner so I would go running with him and after a couple runs, he learnt to run past the 'distractions', because I would not stop running if he started barking. So he would just get pulled along by the leash around my waist.
Also I would take him to pet stores to purposely run into people and dogs. I found if there were a lot of people and dogs around he would not want to bark, opposed to if there was only one on the street he could fixate on. And in the store I would just do a lot of distractive training that would be useful to me on the street like 'leave it'(i use leave it for everything i want him to 'leave', so food, people, dogs, anything! Its very useful I think!) and 'watch me', and teach him to walk right past dogs and people in the store, to show him nothing would happen . . .
Once he started to actually know what these commands meant, thats when he really started to listen on the street, or in the car, when barking! I also stopped letting have free rome of the back yard as well. He only got walked or was with me on lead in the yard. Once he learned the commands to stop barking, I let him have the yard again.
I then started rollerblading and bike riding with him(things he thought were quite scary!) and that helped, but at first it was a little scary I can't say I didn't fall over a few times . . . Worth it though he learnt they were 'fun' things!
Also I would just walk up to people on the street and tell them I was training/socializing my dog,would you give him a treat? This helped a lot ! Most people thought he was adorable and were happy to help!
Well it took about a year to help this boy but he did move downtown with me the next time I left home, and he a confident puppy now, will walk everywhere off leash, use public transit and could care less about kids running up to him ect. . .
Another collie I had was a barker, not fearful though so it was fine, just the breed. She would only bark when guarding the house. But I did teach her to 'speak'. And I found this useful. It enforced for me that barking is not a bad behaviour, but I tell her when I want her to bark and stop. If she were to be barking at say the mailman, and was not listening to my command to stop, I would get excited and say "Ebony come, speak, then treat and good girl! Then down and enough! and treat! Then maybe get her to do another trick! And this actually worked really well in situations were I could get her to stop barking.
With the GSD I enforced the no barking as soon as I got her(adopted her at 2), so if she started barking at something that there was no need for it, I would do the same as the second collie, give her the command to stop, and if she did not stop I would distract with other tricks. Worked very well she stops barking as soon as I tell her now.
I know my example the fearful dog is very extreme!! Not implying your dog is like this at all! But I wanted to share it, just because if your dog is barking out of fear it can escalate to something that can take a long time to fix! Better to catch it sooner then later! And its just not fun to watch your dog have this fear and anxiety. So just from personal experience I think the barking should not be ignored and it should be corrected, even if its not fear related to be able to have an off switch is a good thing!
Kind of a long monotonous post, I know, but I hope some of what I experienced can help you!
I've figured out, since this post, that is rather easy to control his barking inside. Usually, about 9 times out of 10, if I acknowledge the thing he is barking at, he will settle down and be quiet. This tells me that he is trying to let me know there is something out there and he wants me to take control of that thing he hears. Sometimes, we will both hear something outside and if I react to the thing he is alerting on before he barks, I can prevent him barking. I feel kind of stupid playing like I am genuinly concerned about someone walking up the stairs, but if it helps reassures him, (and prevents a barking episode), then I'll do it. I praise him for alerting on something and for being quiet after he barks. I fear accidentally praising him for barking, but right now, we got a manageable situation that is way better than before. Before, I would let him bark and bark and bark, but I figured that was self reinforcing, since his barking wasn't improving.
Also, there are these volleyball players and pool goers right outside our apartment patio that he has a very clear view of, (this past month, they've been out there every single day, I guess they're college kids)...and after about 3 months of barking at them...he has finally stopped!!
Honestly, I think he just figured out that barking at them doesn't make the problem go away, or they are not a threat.
Outside is a different story. There has been times, (more frequently lately) where there will be a lot of people in the apartment parking lot and he is okay with it. I usually guide him away from that person(s), cause there sometimes seems to be a threshold/proximity of barking. Sometimes, he doesn't bark at all and he gets tons of praise for when this happens. Other times.... All it takes is one person in a wheel chair, playing basketball or getting out of their car to ruin it for everyone else...and a barking episode starts. I can't exactly acknowledge the situation like I can indoors, so we just try to go to a different area as soon as possible, but he will still be unsettled for the rest of the walk and is likely to bark at something else again.
I think I need to work more on "watch me" or other commands to distract him, like you did with your collie. I haven't been consistent with the commands on our walks, so I can't yet expect him to improve if that is going to be the thing that helps him.
He barks a lot less out in public, out of his territory, but it still happens. But usually, if we are walking, like in a park, he will not bark. It is when we stop walking when he barks. Sometimes he will tolerate a large group of people, but like I said, all it takes is one person he doesn't approve of to ruin it for the rest.
Right now, I am at my parents house. Emphasis on house...not an apartment. He seems to do MUCH better in a house. He has only barked once, and that was at the treadmill.
Wow this is a LONG post. I apologize in advanced if it was rather boring, haha
I think its really good to make sure he can do the certain commands you use to distract him on the street, in say a pet store, because if he can do them in a pet store with all the dogs and people around him, then theres no excuse on the street . . . If that makes sense.
Its funny how certain things just baffle them, during my collies really bad fear stage, he would bark at the most unusual things like some garbage bags and statues on peoples lawns. . . so embarrassing. . . he totally grew out of that on his own, there was just a couple months of it! He was defiantly a strange one I've never experienced a dog like him before. . .
I think its really good to address this early like your doing!! He should get over it if you just stay consistent in what you want! Good luck!!
- Gryphon only barks when people come up to the house or children at the back fence of our yard. Sometimes she will start if the dogs down the street are barking at something. She doesn't ever bark on a walk, in the dog park or pet store, or any time she is away from her home or the home of a friend. She also doesn't bark at other dogs or people she knows, even if startled. Gryphon will stop barking if I tell her to "knock if off." Her barks are deep and short with long pauses between each one.
- Gojira is most likely to increase in intensity of her barking and has two types of barks. The first is a muttering growl that works up to a sharp bark. She uses this one most often when seeing weird people on the street while we're in the car, but also whenever people come to the house (even people she knows) or we're out on a walk or at a public place. Telling her to be quiet just makes her incrementally reduce the volume of her vocalizations; she *must* have the last word. The other is a high-pitched bark that if ignored eventually turns into a coyote-like yodel. She reserves this one for when other dogs are barking at something or the children are too close to the fence. Stopping the yodel is a matter of distracting her and she never uses it outside the house.
- Ghidora is very vocal at food time and will bark and yawn at my husband or I while the food is being put into the bowls or other dogs' runs. His other barks are expelled like a loud yawn, and he uses those when he wants out of his crate or when he hears us come home and he's out in his run. I've only heard him alarm bark at a visitor on the driveway once, and it was deep and threatening. He doesn't ever have to be told to hush, unlike the others, and doesn't join in when other dogs bark. He doesn't make a peep outside of the house.
- Mosura's barks are high-pitched, hysterical, and scared. She doesn't bark at people approaching our property, but does bark fervently at visitors who get too close to her or change position (such as getting up to go to the restroom). Telling her to be quiet is ineffective, but she is slowly becoming more confident and socialized, which is reducing her episodes. She doesn't join in when the other dogs bark at something.
Of all the dogs, Gojira is the only one who has had to be corrected for barking. She knows she isn't supposed to do it and tries to figure out ways to get away with it. She literally sneaks her barks in while it while I am not looking - as though I wouldn't hear her if I didn't see her! If I give her a dirty look and a stern "no barking" she hunkers down and mutters under her breath, but will continue right after I look away. If I keep glowering at her or tell her to lie down, she sulks and glares at me and in the direction of whatever she was barking at.