I hope this is the correct category to post under.

I have seen a number of posts lately about dogs barking at people which brings me to my question. How do you know when the barking is aggressive or not appropriate? Is barking at a person never acceptable?

My 3-month-old GSD puppy barks at me, she always has. She is getting better at it. I think it is only when she is in her crate, and it does seem to be demanding. I do not let her out of her crate or feed her in the crate until she is sitting and quiet. She is doing much better at controlling herself and it is taking less time for her to settle.

She also barks when I take my other older dog from her crate, their crates are next to each other in the room. That bark is loud, sharp and she is all over her crate. I immediately close the door to that room and leave her alone. She gets no attention when she does that, sometimes I will also turn off the light and close the door.

She has always been very vocal and would definitely run the show if she was allowed. She isn't allowed to and does very well with me. She is learning commands very easily (she LOVES food treats and will do anything for a treat!) and loves to be with me. When we are in the yard she is right with me unless we are playing ball and she is chasing it. She is getting MUCH better about biting my hands when we play or I am petting her. Now, she just sort of grazes my hands with her mouth, no longer actually biting. :-)

Will her barking develop into a problem I need to do something about? WHAT should I be doing about it. Should I separate the crates, put on in a different room? I would like to have hers in my kitchen/family room but she is too vocal and would never shut up at being in there if she saw us around all the time. Maybe that is WHY I should put her crate out in our area. To work on that.

I don't want to let her barking go if it is indicative of a problem. It IS annoying but more than that, it is a demanding sort of bark and I don't want it to develop into something if I can help things now.

I appreciate any insight you can give.

Would the dog body language book address this?

Barbara

Sounds like she just wants to be with you and gets amped up when you take your other animals out.
You can try covering the crate with a sheet, that may help.

I would not let her bark at people. That sounds like a socialization issue and needs to be addressed by taking her around people to get her used to them. They do not have to pet her or anything, just more exposure so that she learns that they are really not something to bark out.

Other option would be a bark collar.

Thanks Carol!

She doesn't bark at people when we are out for a walk. About a week ago I took her to a market where I was fairly certain other dogs didn't "hang out", and we just stood around by the entrance, and walked around a bit. She was absolutely fine. She never barked and for the most part just sat and watched people, a few did pet her.

I DO have a dog room, not the room their crates are in. It is very small but has a doggie door to an enclosed area of the yard. I do let her spend some time each day in there and she does not bark when she is in there. It has a baby gate across the doorway to my hallway. She also DOES take herself outside to potty when she is in there.

I appreciate your reply. I just didn't want to miss something if there was a problem I wasn't catching.

BTW, when she barks at me, she looks me straight in the face and barks. She isn't just jumping around and looking everywhere. Except for when I let my other dog out of her crate, then she is jumping in her crate but still looking at me.

Sounds like good focus to work with and when she barks I would redirect and have her do something else. She is still young yet, so I would take advantage of all that cool energy.

Any suggestions as to how to redirect her since she is in her crate? I could ask her to sit and reward her?

I taught my dog the "place" command for this. maybe it's splitting hairs, but when I put her on a down, I don't want her to release herself, and I don't want to confuse her, either. If I were to tell her to lay down then fall back asleep, I cannot enforce that she lay down if she breaks. I taught the place command (which has been useful in other circumstances too) which is basically to go to a specific place (we started with her bed, then moved to whatever I put down - towel, hankerchief) and stay there. I did this command when I was watching tv, eating dinner, trying to keep it as low key as possible. The goal was teaching her to remain on the object, calmly until I release her. I would always release in a low voice as well to not introduce high energy into the release. She can sit, down, stand there, just not leave the object. For my dog, giving her something to do distracted her from barking. It worked and now at night I have a command to give that contradict what I have taught. It has actually proved useful in one odd situation as I was doing some off leash work one time and another loose dog came on scene running towards my dog. I gave her the place command using my sweatshirt, which left me and my hands free to deal with helping the owner catch the loose dog. I also taught her to bark on command to associate that behavior with a command. Between those two things, the barking stopped for me pretty quickly. Anyone have feedback for me on this?

My problem is she is in her crate and only 3-months-old. I am working on down but it certainly isn't mastered yet, unless we are in the yard and she KNOWS I have those yummy salmon treats in my hand. LOL

This afternoon, I rewarded her a couple of times (with treats) for "good quiet", "good sit", while she was in her crate. I was distracting her this way while I unlatched the other dogs crate with my other hand but.....I then have to step away to lead my other dog out and then she starts up.

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It has actually proved useful in one odd situation as I was doing some off leash work one time and another loose dog came on scene running towards my dog. I gave her the place command using my sweatshirt, which left me and my hands free to deal with helping the owner catch the loose dog.

That is awesome! I wait for the day we are at that level.

Just HOW do you teach a dog to bark on command????? I can see that connecting for her.

With my dog it was easy to teach the bark, actually. A friend of mine made the "hang ten" crocodile dundee hand move once, and she barked at him. After correcting her for alert barking (he was talking to me about somethign and she reacted, he wasn't teasing her...) I was playing with her a few days later and got her drive going, then made that hand signal. She looked at me sideways then barked. That became her signal for it, and eventually I added in a voice command at the same time giving her the hand signal. (she'll do it on either now)It took about 2 weeks, but once she learned to do it on command she actually stopped barking altogether unless given the command. I'll tape it sometime and put it on you tube. It's cute ;-) Sometimes you have to mark the behavior of barking and reward, but in my dog's case I had a way to get her to bark predictably, so I used that to "train".
As for the crate, have you tried making NO fuss about the crate? walk up, put her in, latch the door, throw in a treat and walk away with no eye contact, and when you come into the room, no eye contact, no praise, just act as if it's no big deal the dog is there and crated. Sometimes this works as the dog feeds off you in a positive way and is like, "oh, maybe I was wrong... I guess there is nothing to worry about here." Sometimes there is a guilty knee jerk "I have to praise my dog for being good!" and the dog takes the high energy/emotion as a bad thing instead of a good thing. "I went in that box, now she is really amped up... is this box a bad thing?"

 Quote: barbara fisher

Any suggestions as to how to redirect her since she is in her crate? I could ask her to sit and reward her?

Have you tried covering it? I would try that. I do not really command my dogs to do anything while in their crate except "stop" and this is for when they bark, this is because their crate IS their place and I want them to "know" that as long as they are quiet, they can do backflips in there if they want.
Little Ember is VERY vocal if she is in her crate and another dog is out or she "thinks" she should be. I would just calmly walk over and say "stop" and drop the towel over the front.....now, no towel and I can say stop from across the room or outside the vehicle and she will 99% of the time unless she is really fired up, if she continues, I drop the towel.