i have a 2 yo female altered black lab. she is very submissive at the off leash park but the problem is at our fence line which abuts a sidewalk. when ever some one walks down the sidewalk she gets aggressive and barks until the person crosses the street. she will stop if some one stops and talks to her. she also barks at trucks and loud motorcycles.

i don't know what to do because i want her to bark a little ( to keep people out of the back yard) but not as much (or as often ) as she does.

i am thinking of getting a training collar so i can correct her after a few barks. what do you think?

thanks

I don't know if there is any way to train her to bark "a little".

I lived in a house that backed up to a sidewalk. The fence was a 1x4 type with about 95% blockage of the view. Kids would walk past the fence and tease my pup when she was about 1.5 to 2 years old. It caused her to bark like crazy at people on the other side of the fence. I was lucky and we moved away from that house.

Many years later when she was about 10 years old I lived in a house in Chicago with a iron gate up front. She would sit outside and say high to anyone that walked by. I think she was just too old to get worked up by the people any more.

The only thing I can suggest is that you find a way to keep her off the fence or block the view.

Good Luck

My sister has a Malinois cross that was aggressively barking at the sidewalk side fence of their large yard. He would stop with an "quiet" command, but someone else was always walking by and it would just start all over again. It is a busy small town street.

She has two young boys and she often leaves the dog in the yard with them so she wanted the dog to bark if someone came in the yard, but the fence charging was making it so people did not want to walk on the sidwalk by her house and she did not think that was fair.

She solved the problem by fencing off that section of the yard (the part that faced the sidewalk was quite small). SHe turned it into a small garden area where the dog and kids don't go. The dog was now 15 feet from the sidewalk and the fence and the fence agression was gone. Now if someone jumped into this garden section and came up to the section the dog and kids were in, he would be a scary deterent again!

She also considered a line of invisable fence to keep the dog back away from the sidewalk fence a bit. I think that could have workded too.

Cheers,

I agree with Mike. Dogs can understand the "enough" command. I use it for similar situations. When my GSD barks at some strange noise outside at night...I'm happy he does it. But after a few barks it gets old. I don't want to stop the behavior--I just want to limit it. "Enough" is a command that isn't a verbal correction; it just signals the end of a certain behavior.

"Enough" means, "You've done a good job, but the job's over." I also use the command to signal the end of ball play because otherwise he'll keep trying to instigate more play, even if I have taken the ball away from him. When I say "enough" he calms down.

Some dogs may need a play or treat reward along with the verbal praise when first training this command, because they can sometimes be really amped up and it's hard to break their focus for just a pat. Some dogs take their "jobs" very seriously!

I would personally try to avoid corrections when initially training this command because of the risk that the dog might associate the barking with the correction and therefore stop barking all together. As with most training, try to avoid corrections until the dog is really solid on the command.

Some dogs are relentless, though. I had a client who came to me about a dog much like the OP described. She (the client) said he was so focused on the people walking by on the street that he would only stop barking for about five seconds or so and then go back "on guard" because he was getting the reward in the same spot that he was doing the barking. He wasn't getting the message that he should stop barking. Since he was already being accidentally reinforced for barking, I decided to try a different avenue with this dog. We modified the "enough" command to mean that he should move to a designated spot, away from the fence, for a two minute down.

This worked like a charm. It basically taught him that he had to remove his intense focus when the command was given. As a side-effect, he actually became more discriminating in what he barked at. Instead of barking at people on the street, he started only barking at people that came into the yard.

This dog was an exception...I think that the "enough" command is generally not too tough to communicate to a dog. I mention him because with some dogs, the barking-on-guard is a hard habit to break once it has been well established. So don't give up...just get creative!

Good luck!

 Quote: Geoff Empey

I'm working through that same 'fence aggression' and related 'hole digging' problem right now in the yard. It all stems from not being there to correct right here right now when a offence happens. The dog just then thinks his/her behaviour is ok as it has never been corrected.

Are you trying to eliminate the barking all together? I personally think that being heavy on the corrections is something that would be used to eliminate the behavior all together (like the hole digging) but could cause problems if you only want to modify it (like alert barking that you want to be able to stop on command, but not eliminate all together) especially in a soft or handler-submissive dog.

Either way, you're right...timing is critical and the behavior shouldn't be allowed to happen at all unless you are there to modify OR correct it. If the training only happens 1 out of 30 times it will take a lot longer than if the training happens 30 out of 30 times. Good point to make!

thanks everyone!!!

i have been working with her more now thats its summer. ( more people walking back and forth) i like the "engulf" command because i don't want her to stop all together. i just cant have her be "that dog" in the neighborhood.

but now i have to figure out what to do when she is alone in the yard and i may not be within earshot.

but it is strange that if someone stops and talks to her, she will stop barking. almost like "hey! look at me" and heaven help you if you don't...

jeff

I can't believe we forgot to add the staple advice we all give for behaviors such as this...Increase the dog's exercise!

Everybody, loud enough for the cheap seats: "A tired dog is a good dog!"

 Quote: amber morgan

I can't believe we forgot to add the staple advice we all give for behaviors such as this...Increase the dog's exercise!

Everybody, loud enough for the cheap seats: "A tired dog is a good dog!"

AMEN! So tried and true.