unwanted barking...

[kaiservbismarck]

I have a wonderfully behaved 8 month old male GSD. Recently he has started to bark when people come to the door. This is a good thing in my eyes. The problem is when I welcome someone into the house that he does not know, he continues to bark and growl. Even after I "tell" him it's ok and to stop barking. I don't want guests in my home to be initimidated by him...any suggestions?

[Raziel]

Remove him from the room if "its ok" or "quiet" doesnt work.
Or try to teach him "quiet" then treat him when is is not barking.


Good luck!!!

[Riley's Mom]

An alert bark is good, anything beyond that can be bad. Riley over-does the alert thing.

Your guy is young so I would really get on this right away and you may have better luck than me with it <g>. What I'm trying to accomplish is when someone comes to the door, it's absolutely fine to bark once or twice to let me know someone is here, but then go over to the other side of the room and sit on the rug until I release you.

This works really well when either my husband or I come home but so far I haven't been able to break his hugely intense wayyy over the top focus for delivery people and the mailman.

[lovemybuddy]

I'm working on the same thing with Buddy. (he's 8 mos, too!!!) I'm clicker training him right now, so I just use the clicker for the "enough" command.

Here's how to teach the "enough" command ~ call him to you and play with him, then say "enough." And stand up and stop playing. Reward him when he turns away from you. (I click and treat when he turns away.) Repeat this many times. The "enough" command is supposed to mean "what you were doing is ok, but that's enough of it." I now use the enough command for barking. He'll bark for a little bit, I'll say, "Enough", and the miniscule second that he doesn't bark, I click and treat (or you can just say "yes" and treat.) The trick is getting the click (or the "yes") in when he's quiet. Getting treats takes his attention off of barking, and usually gets him to stop barking. If I can see him gearing up to bark again, getting his attention and a quick "shhhh" is usually all it takes to keep him quiet. (Although he does grumble at me in protest, lol!!)

Good luck!!

[dogmama]

I'd definitely get right on this. I didn't and now I'm training "quiet." As long as the treat is more desirable than the distraction, I win. But with Christmas deliveries, UPS is ruining my training <G!>. Seriously, it's hard to slowly ramp up the training when a delivery man comes to the door & you aren't at that level of training yet. The tastiest treat doesn't work when pitted against the men in brown.