We live in an area where noisy dogs are the best home security you could ask for. The only problem is the neighbors on either side. Sophie does that BARKBARKBARK another poster mentioned. Callie has such a pathetic bark that he does a hearty growl instead. We've tried to make nice with the neighbors. Especially the ones with young kids. When they first moved here the kids would scream when the dogs barked. We brought over fresh tomatoes one day and explained they're actually gentle dogs...just doing their job. If they get too barky I call them in though.

I didn't mean the OPs dog , that was in response to Losos last paragraph where he was talking generally or I assume it was generally .
The OP has asked for help so its a problem for him. You see nothing wrong in this , that's fine if its your own dog but this dog isn't your responsibility. The owner is the one that has to deal with any complaints , the laws has changed recently.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't see where it says do that on the link I gave, it says
"By pairing food with a trigger at a sub-threshold distance (a distance where a dog has little or mild to no response) we are getting the “looking forward to” instead of the fearful aggressive response. "


I'm talking generally here , Again, there's a difference between alert barking and running up and down the fence barking aggressively. Just because it happens so fequently doesn't make it a "natural " dog behaviour. It can be due to lack of socialisation , barrier frustration , boredom. Some dogs become obsessed.

Distractions can help but sometimes novelty wears off. What do you actually do next when have the dogs attention ?

Pip barks because he wants attention, he'd love it if burglars called in
We have a lot of small children pass by on their way to school and fortunately my two are ok and don't bark unless they have a dog with them.

He doesn't go berserk at every noise, he barks at strangers near his house. There's no way I'd try to stop him from doing this. I desire this of my dogs and though Jade has gotten old and rarely barks anymore, my Nigredo barks up a storm if he hears the door or sees someone walking in our yard or right past our house. He's an extremely good dog and the barking certainly doesn't mean aggression. There isn't really a way to calm the barking down without stopping it. I'd say let the boy tend to what he believes are his duties. If my dogs didn't bark at strangers near my house, it would at least mildly annoy me, but all my dogs have done this... whether they had any true aggression in them or not.

I should explain that countercondtioning is not training. CC is changing a dog's emotions. It also refers to things it cant control which heartbeat, sweating blinking etc. If you can change your dogs emotions then he won't feel the need to bark.

This is Operant conditioning e.g this is used to train your dog to do something or not to do something. It also refers to what dogs do voluntarily like wagging its tail or barking and growling.

You do have to be careful about what you are actually training and what you are reinforcing but I cant see where anyone has suggested doing the above in this thread.

If people want their dog to bark and/or run along the fence barking then perhaps they also need him to stop on their say so. Lots of people encourage their dogs to bark but don't know to turn them off when necessary.

Whether a behaviour is natural or not, owner expectations are paramount. In this case, the owner doesn't want the dog to bark at the fence at strangers and is looking for help with that.

Personally, I'd go out with the dog, sit down and as soon as it happens either go over to the fence and talk to the person to see what the dog's reaction is, or call the dog over each time prior to the onset of the barking, or as soon as I saw the person coming and before the dog reacts, start a game so that the dog is relaxed and occupied as the person passes.

In other words, start a different habit that is incompatible to the one (natural or not) that the dog is displaying now.

Which would work for the dog, only the dog can decide

What a really great website that Training-your-dog-and-you...... link takes you to. Thank you for that Alison, another one for my favourites bar.