Barking at unknown things...

Pippa has always had a bit of a barky streak, she is very much a terrier. With the help of a behaviourist we have pretty much sorted out the attention barking. However, there is one sort we haven't managed to fix yet. Pippa will sometimes get fixated on something and just bark and bark and bark. This often happens when she is left downstairs while we get ready (she isn't allowed upstairs) or when in the garden. I make sure I don't go down when she is barking, so as not to reinforce it, but it really doesn't sound like attention barking. It has a growl in front and the barks run into each other, it is more guardy in my opinion. Often when I do manage to go downstairs in a break between barks (difficult once she has started) she might stop for a second to acknowledge I am there but then just carries on. Most times I can't even see what she is barking at, sometimes a wall, sometimes something outside (but I can't see anything), one time she was barking at my shelf of recipe books. How do I deal with this? I feel like if I leave her I am letting her self-reward by getting into this barking stuck-record. But I am also cautious not to reward by going to her. I emailed the behaviourist about this trying to explain but she just repeated the stuff about rewarding the barking by going to her. The only thing at the moment that stops her is popping her in her crate for a bit, but the only way to get her in there is chucking a treat in, which again I feel is rewarding her! ARGH!

Any tips?

Oh and just to add to this, I have tried a 'leave it' command, which we do if she is barking at the cats. Trouble is, she is too clever, and she will come to me when I say 'leave it', and then get her treat, then go back and carry on barking at whatever it was, and it turns into a game that she is rewarded for. So she will then carry on for longer in order (whilst looking sideways at me...waiting....!) to get me to say 'leave it' and she gets a treat for coming to me. So I had to stop doing that.

I was just going to bump this up for you but then had a thought.

You could teach speak/quiet on command. If she is only rewarded for barking when you ask for it and not when you don't, in theory, ha ha ha, the other barking should extinguish. You could have some problems with the barking remaining rewarding in itself but form what I can gather, it can't get much worse?

Anyhoo, hopefully someone talking sense will reply

Nicky

Bentley does this! Once he's started barking he is obsessive. It could just be that there was a small sound somewhere, like the wind in the tress, but then he just won't stop. He only really ever does this in the garden though (usually it is because a child somewhere is uneccessarily screaming at the top of its lungs ) and the only way we can get him to stop is to take him inside...once we've caught him! then we take him back out on lead and the moment he starts barking again he goes back inside etc etc.
We also do a thing where before we let him into the garden we go out first and 'make sure the coast is clear' so he doesn't feel the need to guard/protect the garden. It sounds daft but that has stopped him running around the perimeter like some kind of deranged guard dog

Not very helpful to you I'm afraid but just wanted to let you know that I share your frustration

Thanks guys! I was beginning to think it was just me! Hehe. Re the barking on command, she knows that one, and she knows quiet but never listens to me to do this at other times! My husband said yesterday he managed to get the lead on her when she was barking outside and she lead him straight in to her crate! As if she knew she needed a time out. Is it ok to use her crate for this though as I was told never to use it as punishment...but maybe time out like this isn't punishment as such because it's really just giving her a bit of respite from guard barking?

Your husband did not put Pippa in her crate - she went straight to it. Which sounds to me as if she sees it as a sanctuary, not a punishment.

And maybe yes, she does think that it is her job to be a guard therefore barking at anything and everything she thinks might be a nasty or a danger and needs the respite which her crate "sanctuary" gives her.

I think we will try this. It won't always be so easy getting her to go in, I'm sure. But if I am looking at it like that, then popping a treat in there to get her to go in (rather than chasing her round! ) isn't the end of the world.

Show her the treat - point it towards her crate and say something like "Swapsies" [or "Time Out"] but do not give her the treat until she has gone into her crate. So the treat is a reward for going into her crate, not a punishment.

I have recently discovered "Swapsies" with nearly 4½ years old Pereg when I want to take a recreational bone from her after half an hour or so. I show her a rarely given small treat, say "Swapsies" - and I can take the bone to put in the freezer for another day.

That way she does not get upset/angry/whatever that I have taken something really special from her. It is not that the treat is higher value with her, it is just that she has learned to give up her bone [or Pippa's barking] for something nice. And I would suggest a special treat, not a regular one. Pereg's is a 1 cm² cube of something she rarely has.

If I had a crate for her I would do the same thing, using the words either "Swapsies" or "Time Out". Not that she understands English of course, but she recognises it means "if I do this, you will give me that".

Worth a try with Pippa, and much better than getting her in her crate unwillingly, and then using a treat.

Good luck!

Good luck with it. My minpin just LOVES barking! You can see she enjoys it!

I'd got it sorted until I moved to a different, bigger, apartment but now she's got lots more vantage points to see and hear things going on outside from!

She never barks for more than a minute if that and I have to admit that where before I'd just put her out (and she'd stop instantly) I now don't bother too much. She makes me laugh - she will be comfy on my bed which is on the north side of the building and hear something coming from outside the living room (south side) and not even bother to get off the bed - just turn her head towards the sound and stay on the bed and bark at it! Lazy bint can't even be bothered to get up and see what it is!

Does the same thing if curled up on sofa in living room - switch her head round and bark in direction of front door coz she's hear someone at the lift - then point her barky little face towards the bedrooms if she hears a dog out the back - then towards the open verandah doors if she sees something on the roof opposite.

Petty crime is on the increase here - especially opportunistic thieving where they just wander in, take something and wander out again - and you can't have doors and windows closed. Also quite a lot of new tenants coming and going in this block in recent months so I don't actually think it's such a bad thing that it becomes known that there is a 'barky dog' in my apartment!

We have a noisy sawmill on the north side until about 5pm - she doesn't bark at that, a non stop barking GSD 'guard dog' on the west side from 5pm and she doesn't bark at that either (thank GAWD), noisy cats outside most nights, and at this time of year - kids shrieking in swimming pools all round.

I still haven't worked out really what sort of disturbances trigger her to bark - they certainly aren't the same things I'd be barking at if I could bark!

Bailiie does exactly the same as Bentley, she even has a path now through her "jungle" which runs right along the edge of the fence. Our other problem is next doors dog who doesn't like other dogs - she is a people dog - and Bailiie has to insist on trying to get through the fence panels
I too take Bailiie in when she's in one of these barking moods, or rather I point towards the door and she goes straight in. She knows....
This is repeated each time, so out in garden, bark too much then back in, repeat
I hope you have better luck