AnnGartner

My husband and I have recently adopted a puppy who is probably 7-9 months old. We think she's a lab/pit mix and had a bit of a rough start. She had some injury as a pup and as a result the rescue had to have her left eye removed. I don't think she had much socialization in her early days. She's doing well with us - she plays vigorously with our other 2 dogs. Initially she seemed a little fearful of my husband but that too is gradually getting better. We're doing multiple short training sessions with her each day and she is very smart and food motivated. We live on a farm so she doesn't have a lot of exposure to other people but when she does she starts barking and acting pretty stressed. I'd like to start taking her out to get her more comfortable but I'm not sure if it's too soon to try that. She is definitely more comfortable with me but has been starting to bond more with my husband as he's been doing daily walks with her. What are some signs that she might be ready to start meeting more people? We've been working on the targeting and "watch me" games which she is getting very quickly. Are there other games that would help in this regard

Thanks for the advice! I'm pretty sure we're seeing some extinction bursts. There's also been some improvement on the immediate activity whether it's feeding or walking. He seems to be catching onto the fact that if he's barking he's not getting what he wants so hopefully we can extend that thought to the time prior to the activity.

Thanks, Adrienne. We'll give that a try. It's odd because we have a lot of wild animals here and for the most part he isn't too interested in them. When we go to the barn at night he is always on the lookout for the rats and mice but if he sees one he doesn't bark. His barkyness is almost exclusively when he's interacting with us (and mostly me). He is a rescue and spent at least 3 months in the shelter. When we first got him I thought his vocal cords had been clipped because he only had a small, raspy bark. I think that was because he had barked himself hoarse at the shelter. It's his go-to behavior when he wants something. With both feeding time and walking he'll start barking as early as 30-40 mins before it's time. Any suggestions on how to distract him during that time period? Needless to say the switch from daylight savings time is not good.

I've got a 5 year old foxhound mix that is very barky when he's anticipating something. The main triggers are feeding time and going out - either for a walk or to the barn at night to check the horses. I've been trying not to reinforce his behavior but have had no success. For feeding time we usually put him out in the yard while preparing his food so at least it's not as loud and annoying. We have 3 other dogs and one of them also tends to howl at feeding time so they cheer each other on. When he comes in he will generally sit quietly while I put his food down. When walking he will bark for the first couple hundred yards just out of sheer exuberance. He gets a lot of exercise but he's very needy. Sometimes when he wants something he will do what we call "Darth Dog" where he sits and breathes heavily - it's almost a whine but not quite. I feel like I can't break the cycle consistently enough to establish a new behavior.