Hello

We have a 3 month old laika puppy who has started barking excessively during last 2 weeks. I think barking wont stop in the future because the name of the breed (barker) promises that.
I was thinking of getting a no bark collar. How old does the puppy have to be to start wearing one?
When choosing between brands then dogtra, tri-tronics and einstein will certainly help me out.
Perhaps someone could give me some pointer when and what to buy.
Thank you for in advance for your help!
Gunnar

Why would you want to put a bark collar on a puppy. A 3 month old puppy is a BABY!

Redirect the puppy, teach a no bark command & reward the no bark.

ETA...

If the pup is barking from within his crate...place a towell over the crate to eliminate the visual stimulas. Give him a bully stick to chew on or a kong stuffed with peanutbutter or cream cheese to keep him busy.

In my opinion he is a baby. He doesn't understand that he is supposed to be quiet in the crate yet. I would not put a bark collar on a dog until it is 5 or 6 months old and understands what appropriate behavior in a crate is.

Get him a nice frozen knuckle bone to gnaw on while he's in there. See if he likes bully sticks. There are plenty of toys and treats out there to occupy a puppy in a crate.

Puppies make noise in a crate until they understand what you want of them. Putting a bark collar on him when he won't understand the reason behind the shock could, in my opinion, damage him permanently... not to mention it would damage any relationship you may have built with him.

It is your job as his owner to teach him what is right. This is done motivationally with pups. PRAISE him for what he does RIGHT and redirect him when he is wrong.

I like to say it's like when a person yells a foreign language at you and you don't know what the words mean. Should you get shocked for not obeying when you have no idea what you were supposed to do?????? Is that fair????? Would it do anything to actually teach you what the words mean or would it just scare you?

My humble 2 cents.

This baby dog has no idea that you are saying "quiet." He speaks. You speak. He speaks. You speak louder. Even if you don't, barking is fun.

I wouldn't put a no-bark collar on an adult dog, in fact, unless and until I had taught no-bark.

Teaching no-bark with markers and rewards is the way to go, IMO. Punishment out of the sky for a completely mysterious reason -- you don't want to do that.

If you tell us whether you know anything about marker training, we can help you first charge your marker, then capture a silent moment and mark/reward for it, then name it, etc.

Even if you know nothing about marker training, I've taught plenty of dogs no-bark years before I learned marker training with rewards and praise for a break in a bark-fest. I've stood there like a statue, looking away, zero attention, until the dog finally stops to take a breath or look at me to convey "what the heck" and then I INSTANTLY praised and rewarded.

So tell us if you'll be marker training (strongly recommended), and we'll go from there.

And for sure, you'll want busy-work for him in his crate, as Anne and Kelly have said.


Please don't feel too ganged-up on. Unfair corrections are one of those things ..... and corrections for something the dog hasn't been trained for are unfair.


PS
Welcome! Stick around. Most questions really do NOT generate a poop-storm.

I would add to Anne's post to put a piece of plywood on top the crate that is a few inches, both ways, bigger then the crate. That keeps the dog from dragging the blanket into the crate.

Gunnar, you might want to post a little intro here:

http://leerburg.com/webboard/topiclist.php?forum_id=146

You can embed a photo or two there of you and your dog if you like (the rest of the board, photos should be provided as links, to a Photobucket-type account).

Always nice to see a puppy face to put with a name! (What is his name?)

Hi Gunnar. Welcome to the board. Are you using a crate for your puppy? If not, what form of confinement do you use when you can't be right there with him or her? Is this the only time the puppy barks is when it wants to be free from confinement?

Or are you saying your puppy is barking all the time for other reasons? Barking out of playfulness, trying to get your attention? Barking at things in the environment, indoors or outdoors?

It would be helpful to know a little more detail about the circumstances of the barking. But as the previous posters have all pointed out, puppies don't know they aren't supposed to bark excessively and must be taught not to do this. A no-bark collar is not the answer for a dog this age.

Hello to all!!
Thank you all for prompt responses and advice. Guess the subject line caught attention and writing seemed like a way to save one puppy from injustice. I’m glad that there are still people who care.

I read Ed’s article on how to teach a dog not to bark. This far (bark works but no bark doesn’t) I’ve been teaching to bark for about 3 weeks.
One day I saw an ad where they were giving away to adorable cubs (puppies looked like cubs). We got our little puppy when she was 5 weeks old and named her Jessy. She is a mix of Siberian and European laika.
I know it’ was too early. Just had a choice whether we took her or someone else would have. So me and my wife took that pup to our home. We live in an apartment, so guess laika wouldn’t be the perfect pet. Still we hope that with Ed’s and this community’s help and knowledge well train Jessy to be a good family member.
Luckily I managed to watch some DVDs (Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8, The Power of Training Dogs with Food, Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs, Basic Dog Obedience Training)not long after we brought our puppy home. I haven’t watched the food training till the end.
Because Jessy was young we couldn’t take her outside. We had to wait till she could get her first vaccine. So schooling to pee and poop outside was not possible.
Back then barking wasn’t an issue.
Jessy lives in a crate like the puppy DVD suggested. When we are not home we leave her crate door open so she has the corridor all buy her self. She whines are barks softly to let as know that she wants to go outside. Sometimes she barks excessively in a crate. This always confuses me because not always will does she pee when I take her outside. When I come home she pees immediately on the floor. This has luckily happened less and less.

Jessy stops to bark when we say shhh, but not for long. This works for long term during nights. Ignoring helps but again, not always. Her crate I covered so she doesn’t see us. Still she can hear us and I guess this is one of the problems. Sometimes she can go barking for hours. Unfortunately we haven’t figured out the reason.
We have tried playing with her and walking outside for longer periods of time. This hasn’t helped. In fact when we thought Jessy should be tired she started sprinting and running around us when on leash.
Barking aside she is a tough dog. We haven’t been able to give her a correction so that she would loose interest.
She learns really fast (except not to bark). We started when she was about 6 weeks old. Jessy now sits, lays down, sits before leaving house and before climbing stairs, fetches toys and gives them away on command (without treat not always but with food always).
As toys she has some so called smart balls which are filled with snacks, same soft animals and a pigs knuckle bone to chew on.

This reminds me that she used to bark also when we left the house, But prior to leaving we give her a bone and this helps us sneak out without her barking and bolting outside the door.

Another problem was that she wanted to jump on a couch and look what’s on a TV table. We used to say no and then take her to a bathroom for isolation. She would bark and when she stopped, took her outside. Immediately she would run to the couch. This continued for about 7 times until she stopped for about 4 minutes. Then everything would start all over again. Now we’ve set up a dog fence between living room and a corridor so she can’t come there whenever she wants when she’s not in a crate.
When she got mad because we didn’t let her do the things she wanted se started biting (call it playing), This scared me so that I thought that we have an aggressive dog. So I watched the dominant dog DVD and calmed down.

In near future I’ll be ordering a remote collar. Probably an Einstein. Still confused between dogtra, tri-tronics and Einstein. But that’s another topic.

I would love to learn to train with markers. All suggestions ant tips are welcome.
Hope I Jessy wont be needing a no bark collar. Time will tell.

Here are some photos of Jessy https://picasaweb.google.com/108709136142707455882/Jessy?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIi4sqSAwvKfMQ&feat=directlink

I do use e-collars on all my dogs and training starts at about the 6 month mark with the ones that came to me as pups. But this training consists of a couple of weeks of just getting them used to wearing the collar and then figuring out the level that will generate an ear twitch or blink. And even then, the e-collar re-inforcement, on the lowest level, is not used until commands have been trained and proofed in advance.

I've never used a bark collar though. Have known many people who do and say it's very effective on their older dogs but have also never heard of one being used on a 3 month old pup. Not something I would ever think of doing.

There's no human connection, control or real training involved.

As much as I advocate e-collar use, I could not imagine a device, independently shocking a little puppy into submission every time she barked.

 Quote: Gunnar Heinoja

We have tried playing with her and walking outside for longer periods of time. This hasn’t helped. In fact when we thought Jessy should be tired she started sprinting and running around us when on leash.

Barking is also a way to express excited energy. She looks and sounds like she could be a really active little pup.

It never gets old and holds so true - a tired dog is a good dog.

If there's anyway you can figure out how to get this little girl some more exercise I'm sure you'd be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Radar was pretty age appropriate with his barking at 3 months old, but he was definitely one of those babies that would run laps around you after a very long walk. I learned that going through an obedience/trick book and practicing what we had learned that day worked great for engaging his mind enough to wear him out.