My seven months old GSD female barks at people in a not so nice way at night when I take her out to potty. I know she is trying to protect me, but I normally take her out very late, like 11pm or even later just before I go to bed. I don't want problems with my neighbors so I some times want to shut her up, but then again, will I discourage her from protecting me if I keep shuting her off?

Hve you tought her the "Quiet" Command?

Why are there people outside when you take her out to do her business at 11 pm at night? That is weird.

No, I have not tought her the quiet command. I don't know why there is people outside that late, I mean, it is not like there is a lot of people but just the occasional guy passing by on the street.

There you go! Teach the quiet comand! There are always goign to be people out that late at night I am usually.

same situation here, sometimes does it during the day to the neighbors girls next door.

how is the quite command best introduced?

DOBE, the thing is that she does not act like that during day light. She is people friendly and loves kids, but at night, when she sees someone walking in the street her hackel rises and she gives a few loud barks, actually she will keep barking until the person is out of site.

I agree with Caniche as even my huskies which are about as far from a protection breed as you can get are hyper-vigilant at night if something out of the ordinary is going on. They will bark at stuff that in the daytime they would normally sleep through. I think that this is something hardwired into dogs as in the wild a lot of hunting activity is carried out in the wee hours.

I agree with the teaching of the quiet command. In my house it is "enough". It works like a charm, my dog is very barky any where around my house day or night, unless I am doing some type of work with her.

Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but I would give a name to the bark, praise the bark and then distract her, switch direction, call her name and when she stops barking, say "good quiet" or something like that. I may be missing asetp in there, so someone jump in if they have a better way.

Good morning!
Ok... first I would not discourage this natural attentiveness either.. it's handy as Caniche points out, but rather control it.

To answer DOBE's question of how to train the quiet, I did mine two ways...first way your going to laugh at me because it's silly, but I think it was cute.. second is for trial.

1: My pup has adopted one of my old shoes as his son... he sleeps with this shoe and it's his baby, every friggin morning when I come downstairs he starts barking like a, well... dog and then he picks up his son and carries him around growling and barking with this shoe in his mouth and acting like a comedian, showing me how tough he is, so one morning I grabed his son before he got to it and he of course started barking to get it.. I told him "That's enough" and held his son for randsom, when he stopped barking I gave his son back, after a few mornings of this... as soon as I say "That's enough" he will stop barking and sit. Stupid I know but it worked. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

2: During training we do some bark training with the helper sometimes.. helper acts suspious, cracks whip from across field, dog barks like mad... I just Fus him and he stops barking and Fus's. I really did nothing to command the stop barking, he just kind of does it, when given a OBD command. He will give a bark one or two sometimes, but I just tell him "That's enough" and he seems to remember what that is even in drive.

So there you go. That's how I did it.