So a previous thread got me thinking. Is a dog that barks at people going by his fence line a problem or is it just normal dog behavior. I expect people's dog to be territorial. It doesn't bother me when dogs walk a fence barking. But some people seem to act like it is an issue. "I assume it's the ones who are afraid of and don't understand dogs who act like it is an issue. I will post a video of my back yard for reference. Thoughts? I will also try and get a video of them barking at someone walking by later.
When my dogs are in their kennel they bark at passersby.If they are free in the yard they don't.Whenever I pass by a dog behind a fence I'm usually barked at.IME it's normal.
My neighbors are not close,so it really doesn't bother anyone.
I'm going with....it's pretty normal.....especially for this breed. However.......when I say to knock it off....it ends...took a bit to get her to see it my way....but I let her get a few barks in before telling her enough.
My fenced in area is farther from the street.....so people walking by probably aren't as uptight.....but....there are always going to be those who see it differently....oh well.
Come to think of it..........I'd say better than 90 plus % of the dogs in my neighborhood fence bark at people as they walk by their turf........when I sit outside....the dog and I have figured out which direction people are coming from....and if they are walking a dog.....the barking is more "spirited"......
I've got something similar on having an enclosed porch. My dog doesn't bark at people who walk on the sidewalk. But if they turn towards the house, he lights up.
Must be a tool...
I usually don't bother with them barking unless there is a young child who seems troubled. Adults or basically anyone over 12 I figure deal with it. The ones who kill me are the people who walk dogs and will stop as if to think their dog and my dogs are gonna just be instant best friends, as my dogs are sprinting towards the fence. They always act so surprised when my dogs greet them with my yard get out of here barks. Or the dogs who are pulling towards my dogs and the owners act as if they can not for the life of them walk their dog away.
I do watch dog barking more than human. I don't want Athena to develop any dog issues that will mess us up at club.
It's normal but it can lead to aggression and reactivity big time. Some of the worst aggression cases I've seen started as fence fighting and built up and bled over into other pictures.
You will find that idiot that sticks his hand over or through the fence at some point and your dog may decide to do more than bark in that case.
Interesting. That was my main concern with Athena. That she may develop a habit of barking at dogs for the heck of it and spill over onto the SCH field.
My older male Rosko and the neighbors male dogs fence fight every chance they get. Through a privacy fence so they can't see each other but it sounds vicious. I always put a stop to that as I figure eventually someone's gonna get through or under and it will be on for real. As of right now when this goes on the Germans seem oblivious to them fence fighting.
Those idiots are out there for sure. I used to sell milk over my front gate sometimes if it was a stranger and I didn't want them in my property alone with me. Dogs would run up to the gate and have a little bru ha ha. They'd stop when I got there and told them to, and then they'd sit there and stare at people while I did my little transaction.
My old male was not messing around. There were signs on the gate, German Shepherds, do not pet, do not feed. So there's my dog, barking aggressively with a hard stare at this guy who reaches his hand through the gate to make friends with him. I yelled at him to get his hand out of there and he looked so shocked and said something like "dogs love me". I was like, this one doesn't. He'll eat your fingers with ketchup.
Unbelievable. People used to try and feed their babies to our horses back in the day too. I literally caught people offering their infant over the fence for the horse to sniff. Ran out there yelling at them to get that baby out of there.
We DID have a horse sever someone's finger, not the one they were offering the baby to, but those people didn't know that!!
This part almost gave me a mental breakdown. I thought surely she mis-typed. Gotta be a mistake. Who the **** feeds infants to horses. Should have read the whole paragraph before having my wtf moment.
personally, I don't allow my dogs to bark at people passing by on the street. or at neighbors in their yard. Once people step onto the edge of the property, then absolutely bark away.
Cowboy- I completely agree with your post and I, too learned some of this the hard way.
I can't emphasize enough the part about never giving neighbors a reason to resent your dogs. It's important to keep the peace. I'd recommend a solid wooden fence, not chain link, and one that is six feet.
You'd be surprised how stupid people can be, and a wooden fence protects the dogs from stupidity and also prevents any unwanted contact.
Barking is completely normal, but you need to decide how much you want to allow.
Normal and a problem are not mutually exclusive. A lot of normal dog behavior can be a problem, depending on the circumstances. For me, I wouldn't want my dogs doing that, and would find a way to block their view or confine them to a smaller area of the yard where they couldn't have the opportunity to bark at people or dogs passing by.
I recently just moved from an apartment to a house with my boyfriend (we're renting) and the previous tenants had a outside dog only that from the looks of it fence fought a lot with the neighbors dogs. Millies not much a barker, their barking startled her a little but she wont fence fight with them, Finn looks a bit more interested in it but I tell him to leave it and we usually just head inside when they're out because the last thing I need is for someone to complain that we have aggressive german shepherds or something of the sort. The fence itself was falling apart due the other dogs jumping on it, today as we headed inside i saw the big dog jump on the fence it literally looked like it was about to give way.
I got a vinyl privacy fence cause I did not want this. I think it can be normal but with multiple dogs it can escalate. They can redirect on each other, not to mention scare the heck out of people. I know I am always thinking I wonder if that fence is going to hold when j walk by a dog barking and charging.
Yeah our fence unfortunately the dogs can see people who walk down our road. Not to many people walk on the road which is aligned to the side of our back yard except for a few neighbors. There is a big buffer between the fence and the road. With trees and bushes. I'm not crazy about the fact they can see the people walking by. There is woods and brush the dogs do run thorough to get to the fence line. So I'm thinking of put a deer fence in the brush/ woods so they can't get to the fence line for now. When I hear the dogs bark as they alwAys do when someone is walking by I call them in the house. I don't want them constantly barking or want their hyper focus at the neighbors who are walking by. Max has the biggest mouth of them all and gets easily hyped up. So I call them in right away when I hear barking to make sure no one is harassed.
My issue with dogs who bark at the fence is when the fence comes right up to the sidewalk. I have so many issues with neighbors who think that, because their dogs can't physically connect with mine, that they can leave them to their own devices. We've had countless walks where dogs come running to the fence from behind a shrub or whatever and it scares the crap out of my dog and me.
A couple weekends ago we passed by a white picket fence with a big doodle behind it. This dog lost his mind and chased us up the length of the fence. Luckily we had crossed the street. The owner (middle aged man) stood behind a glass door and fiddled with his smartphone. Chandler is dog aggressive and these moments can be really tough.
We ended up passing by later that day and the dad, two kids,it s and doodle were out again. The dog lost his mind, the kids were freaking out and screaming, and the dad played with his phone. Again.
*Ahem* Sorry for venting....i guess my point is that you just have to be careful with this behavior. In certain contexts it's a minor source of irritation for you but in others (like suburbia) it's a big problem for everyone else.
But it sounds like you have plenty of space and I highly doubt you would be as ignorant as the Doodle Guy.
I think it only becomes a problem for your dogs barking behind a barrier if it's frequent and creates frustration.They can become obsessed and determined to rush out and get to the person or animal.A similar concept when a dog is back tied and teased to amp them up?
Out in the boonies we don't get many passersby but we do get neighbor dogs frequently.So we've done meet n greets with all of the local pooches to try and keep the excitement/frustration to a minimum when my dogs are indoors or kenneled and a neighborhood dog drops by.They'll still bark and whine a bit but not frantically.
Just this morning the golden retriever across the field came ambling over when I had mine out first thing.They all had a calm sniff session before we went back inside and Jake the golden trotted back home.In our situation it's easy to manage.If we were in town the challenge would be to avoid practicing frustrated fence running and territorial barking.
I let mine bark a warning, then stop them for safety reasons. I had a fence barker years ago. He was frustrated and didn't get enough exercise. He bothered the neighbors so much I almost had to get rid of him. I decided I would never have another fence barker again. Mine now bark to alert, but they don't run back and forth along one of the fences to bark. It's too obsessive. I have tried to teach them thoughtful behavior for a good reason, not mindless barking.
I've lived two houses up from a house that had a fence barker in a busy neighborhood. What made it worse was the fence was chain link and right off the sidewalk. I swear the dog barked non stop all the time. It drove me INSANE. I don't know how the direct neighbors or even the owners could stand it! Thankfully, I don't live there anymore.
I am a runner 9 half marathons and 2 full marathons in the last year. I run more than a hundred miles a month on the roads... I don't mind the dogs that bark (even aggressively) because it alerts me and my running buddy Rex (half lab half pit) that they are there. You never know when the gate will be open at the end of the fence. I live out in a more rural area so I come across dogs fenced and unrestrained all the time. I've only been bit twice and both times it was from a pup that never made a sound....and that dog was unrestrained by a fence or chain.
So from my point of view....I'd rather they bark like mad and give me a chance to make them happy then to just let me know with their bite that I am not where they want me to be. >
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