AngieTorres

Thank you! I really thought she’d throw a fit without her usual walk but we did training games outside for about 20 minutes then took a 5-10 minute walk to get her to poop and omg maybe it’s a coincidence but she was able to see a big dog from our steps and not completely freak!! She didn’t even bark she just stopped and stared which is huge! She did small barks at some passerby where our “backyard” is (I live in an apartment it’s basically grass and a bench with a fence to the street) but that’s the least foot traffic of all the areas near me. Then we’re playing some indoor fetch and tug (shes not ready to play outside yet, just doesn’t want to) to get out any extra energy. We’re going to try this routine for a few days while we work on the behavior modification towards sounds. 🙂

I just realized a big problem. When my dog sees a trigger she freezes. The only way for me to create distance with a dog coming toward us is to practically drag her away and even then she’s probably still barking. When dogs are parallel or in front of us walking the same direction as us she’s usually good but that’s rare to encounter. As long as a dog is moving toward us in any way she’s wigging out. She knows “this way” means follow me but she doesn’t always listen, especially not when she sees a trigger. And as a general update I am trying to get her to see a veterinary behaviorist since our insurance will cover some of it. But the wait times are anywhere from 2-4 months. Oof. What should I do in the meantime? I’m trying to find a positive trainer I can afford.

Oh you are so helpful!! I really appreciate you. Okay so for the questions: 1. She stops barking within 5-10 seconds or less and continues with what she was doing prior to barking- probably snoozing on the couch. She doesn’t appear anxious for them to come back but not exactly relieved that they’re gone either, just moving on. 2. About 95% of the time when I leave she is very calm. Sometimes doesn’t even get up from the couch. It’s rarely just us two since one of our roommates tends to be home at a time. 3. She calmly watches them leave or follows them to the door and doesn’t bark at the door once they’re gone (they would be able to hear). Similar to number one, she just moves on with whatever she was doing once they’re gone. 4. she likes them quite a lot. Not clingy really, she tends to chill in the living room or in my room when I’m gone instead of following them. But she’ll snuggle them if they’re on the couch or something like that even sometimes when I’m home. sometime when they’re not busy I’ll work on desensitizing her to them leaving with the keys and such on a leash. But as for the leash she does seem to behave better if she can follow them out. Like if I pick her up and treat her to calm her down she’s much calmer if I follow them and don’t have her unable to be near them when they leave. the only time she barks when I’m not home is briefly at outside stimuli (dog tags that she can hear, seeing someone pass if we forgot to push in the chair near the window, etc) but it’s not excessive. My roommates said sometimes if my roommate like jumps up fast or something alarming she might do some startle barking but gets over it fast. Otherwise they can leave and enter with no issues.

Hello community! Any suggestions for enrichment activities to reduce boredom when I leave my dog at home for school or work? Typically 2-6 hours at a time. My dog barks at my roommates when I AM home but she does bark at them for attention sometimes and I’m thinking it might be to ask for play aka more stimulation/enrichment. Plus I just think it would be good for her to add more of these activities into her life especially with no other dogs to play with and me not being home a whole lot during peak play with me hours

Thanks! Sorry back to the og point of the post because there was a roommate meeting called over her barking and me asking my roommate not to harshly scold my dog. so here’s what I’ve been trying. Ignoring doesn’t work. She simply does not give up in any reasonable amount of time. I’ve tried doing the find it game which works if she’s not particularly sensitive that day or when I leave but if she’s having a “feral day” as we call it treats, even treats she likes, have a hard time getting her attention. Especially through the whole process of getting ready to leave that she’s very aware of. Keys jacket shoes etc barking the whole time on these days. Today was one of them. Morning and afternoon, when I’m home she was barking her head off at both of them when they tried to leave. But silence when I’m not home. we’re thinking of getting a pen, doing the typical training of “we like it in here lots of treats happen in here” thing, then setting her in it with a kong or something similar before they start to get ready. As i previously mentioned my concern is that she’ll just be barking from inside the pen instead of following them around. another thing I’ve tried is picking her up when they’re getting ready and treating her for her silence which typically works if I remember it fast enough.

Got it, what if she barks from inside the pen? I have a feeling she will. I believe the long lead (I got a 15 foot) is for the sake of having a scared dog make the choice to turn around and show physical signs of discomfort before reactions instead of being forced to have little radius to move.

Thank you! How does playpen training work for indoor reactivity? Should I plop her in the pen with some treats or a kong whenever she starts barking and wait until she calms down to let her out? I’m taking a training course and they suggested long ish leads for reactivity to allow them to make the choice to turn around or show physical boundaries before reactions better. Is that true? She seems to be much calmer on a retractable but I know those aren’t very safe.

Thank you everyone for your help! I truly appreciate the thorough replies. You are so incredibly helpful!! Yes here’s the link: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/login/ in the members area when you click forum you get a 404 error. So according to my roommates she doesn’t bark hardly at all when I’m not home, both with them and with strangers visiting. She’ll bark a bit sometimes if one roommate moves too fast (lol) but won’t bark when they try to leave. Whereas if I’m home and they try to leave she’s making a whole scene. Same with visitors, when I wasn’t home and a visitor came over she had no problems. Didn’t bark, wanted to cuddle, etc. but when I came home she barked whenever she got up even if it wasn’t heading my way. I definitely think it was just too much change at once for her. Getting roommates at my dorm plus a new puppy at my parents was a lot for her. I have trouble with emergency U turns because she thinks turning around means the walk is over and we’re heading home and will stand in place and refuse to move. She also tends to spot dogs pretty fast. Today she saw one far away (couple hundred feet maybe?) and didn’t react until it got closer (50 feet or so) but it was a small reaction. But then she got startled when a Pomeranian turned a corner and went kinda crazy even though it was a similar but slightly smaller distance. In my area theres really only two directions to walk, one with more people and less potential for dogs and one with potentially more dogs. Both seem to get her a little stressed, but it depends on the day with the people thing. It’s mainly if they get too close to us. She’s also not a huge fan of scooters and bikes but I can typically get her attention with a look at me and she won’t bark at them. My goals are to address and ideally one day eliminate her dog fears, then work on in public manners (though she’s pretty good already when there’s no dogs), then do specific tasks. Maybe I could do tasks before public manners though since those can be practiced at home.

Sorry for the late reply, I keep losing this forum page haha (by the way the forum link on the older website doesn’t lead here anymore). My roommates have noticed that she tends to only really bark at visitors or at them when I’m home. I’m not sure why she’d do this, or how to fix it really. Because when I’m gone she’ll even snuggle strangers! But the second I’m home she’s barking up a storm if they so much as stand to go pee. Could there be a puzzle piece I’m missing here? I’m also looking into utilizing forms of play (toys food and social) to sort of loosen her up and increase her confidence. She loves walks (if not demands them and mopes if she doesn’t get them) but seems somewhat hyper vigilant when she’s out. She won’t take anything but straight cheese or meat once she’s outside which I’m sure isn’t the best thing when it comes to training and needing lots of treats. If you look through my page you can see how she used to be a lot more people reactive (it’s gone down to maybe 5-10% of people when on walks, inside is a different story) but has stayed dog reactive. I do my best to create distance and create new associations with treats but it doesn’t seem to be solid footing. We made some progress over the summer but upon moving back to my dorms she lost practically all of it. I know we’re very far from the manners needed for this but I’d love for her to be my psychiatric service dog one day, and I just want her to be less anxious about things. I truly appreciate all the help and advice.

Got it! Should I ignore her as well or try to get her attention away from them? I'll try the kong and playtime. As for entering and exiting she moves on quickly, like 5-20 seconds. She just seems to be upset that they're leaving or alerting everyone that someone's home (she doesn't always bark when entering).

I moved into a dorm about a month ago with two new roommates. My dog seems to like them- she voluntarily snuggles them and asks to be on their bed and such. But she barks basically whenever they don't pay attention to her or enter or exit the house or sometimes even the room. It's getting irritating and I don't know what to do. Help please!

She’s quite good with her clicker actually. She figured it out in like a day. She totally responds to it and gives me her attention when she hears it probably 85% of the time. When she doesn’t it’s because she already went over threshold on accident.

Thank you! That’s a good strategy and she likes being held. It calms her for sure. We met a dog bigger than her today (not really by choice, I had her on the bench with me and he came bounding over) and once he calmed down she did really well. She tried to set some boundaries when he wanted to get in her face and jump around (body language, etc) but once he got settled by his owner she completely calmed down. He was a few feet away and she was sitting on her cushion, taking treats, and even gave a butt sniff! I think her instinct is to protect me too. I let him come up to me and pet him to show her that dogs aren’t a threat to me either. She was watching from a slight distance (she’s on leash on the bench) but didn’t go crazy when he came up to me.

Also, why don’t you use things such as clickers? Is there something about human sound that’s better?

Thank you for all the help! She barks at dogs inside and outside the house but when approached gets very nervous and hides behind me. I’m thinking of just sitting on a bench outside my apartment and working on desensitization. I’ve mentioned it before but her threshold is pretty low, not for humans but for dogs. Most of the time it’s on sight barking, no matter how far, though sometimes she’s able to hold herself back a little and just grumble or whine. She isn’t very food motivated which is my problem. When it comes to positive association work with humans she’ll usually take treats but once she sees a dog she no longer cares about treats. Even things like Hot Dogs or cheese aren’t more important to her than focusing on the dog.