Crate barking while people are over

[Zach Bennett]

Hello, we have a 1 year old rescue German shepherd that we have had for a month.

Every day we discover new reasons to love him but he also has a new challenge almost every day! 

At the moment our landlords have scheduled a lot of work to be done by various contractors so I have been placing him in his crate with bikkies and treats before they arrive and having him in there for the duration (1-2 hours) to keep them and him safe. He can open the doors in our house and jump the backyard fence so the crate is the only 100% secure spot and is his place as well.

He is otherwise well crate trained and happy to be in there. He goes in by himself to relax during the day. 

My question is, when he barks at them furiously and snarls and whines from the crate what do we do? 
 

I have tried the ‘be a leader’ method telling him I will go look and then checking it out coming back and saying it’s all fine and getting him to go to a down position but he begins barking again a few minutes later. 
 

My partner has tried interrupting him by banging on the top of the crate during frantic barking then complimenting when quiet but I don’t want to end up with a fearful dog or make him hate his crate. 
 

How do we help him to feel safe and not wanting to bark and snarl and jump around when strangers are in the house or at the door.  

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there!

What a pretty GSD you have and thank you for rescuing!

This sounds like stress barking. It can be very stressful for them dealing with intruders entering the home, carrying big tools and wrecking havoc in the home. For us, it's simple: we know the workers are helping us out remodeling the home, while to our dogs, they are uninvited intruders, using ear-piercing tools and destroying stuff! These intruders should be sent away!

I have actually seen some dogs becomes reactive towards people after enduring such stressful events. I therefore cannot emphasize enough trying to do as much as possible to make these events less  stressful.

Here are some tips:

-Walk your dog. I know this isn't always feasible, but if one of you can walk him during those 1-2 hours or at least take him on a car ride to pick up some goodies and walk him around the store (if he's OK with seeing other dogs/people), that would be extra helpful in sparing him from all the stress and as a bonus you'll be keeping up his training and socialization, win-win! 

-Make the area less stressful. Take him to the farthest room of the house from where they are working.  You can try to buffer sounds with some white noise using a white noise machine, turning on a white noise YouTube channel, using classical music TV/radio channel, having a fan blowing. You can also run a DAP (dog appeasing pheromone) diffuser in the room which may have a calming effect. 

-Make your dog calmer: Rescue remedy, calming supplements. You can ask your vet for some prescription calming meds that are situational (just meant to be given when exposed to certain temporary triggers). In this situation, these can sometimes work alone in reducing stress enough for the dog to not feel like barking, but the ultimate goal should be changing the dogs' emotions towards workers. 

-Work on creating positive associations. This can take some time, but I have used this often with dogs and like the results. I actually do this with any person coming over from plumbers to roof installers to delivery guys. 

I keep the dog laying on a mat on leash with me holding the leash and sitting on the floor next to them, and every time the dog hears a noise, I feed a high value treat (like slivers of low sodium hot dogs). I basically work on the 'hear that" method as explained here:  https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/fear-noises/

It's important to keep the dog at a distance from the triggers, so that he's not too over threshold, but yet in a learning state and capable of taking the treats. More about thresholds here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

Every sound the workers make, I feed a little treat this way I am using desensitization and counterconditioning.

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/counterconditioning/

If calories are an issue, I mix some kibble with the hot dogs overnight so that they absorb some of the aroma and use those.

With several reps over several days, if done correctly without the dog ever feeling overly stressed, I start seeing what's known as the onset of a positive conditioned emotional response: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/conditioned-emotional-response-cer/

I then progress to the dog seeing the workers enter and exit, doing the same, but moving from 'hear that' to look at that. Basically the dog is fed a tasty treat every time he sees the workers. We may start by watching the workers from a window before progressing to seeing them enter and exit the home. 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/

I may swap from hear that to look at that, back and forth as needed. 

This is a behavior modification sample of a case I worked on using a similar approach: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dog-barking-someone-enters-room/

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions, keep us posted on how things go. Hopefully, it won't be long for them to finish up, so that your dog can resume enjoying more peaceful days. 

Happy training!

Best,

Adrienne 

 

[Zach Bennett]

Thank you so much for your detailed and helpful reply and for sending the article links! 

I really don’t want him to become more afraid and reactive and I’ll try these approaches for the next time someone is coming and we can’t get him out and about. 

We have some adaptil in a diffuser and a collar adaptil for him going already for his car concerns but I will see if the vet can help him with something extra for when they come and the training approaches as well.

Thank you again and warm regards,

-Anna & Zach 
 

 

 

[Adrienne Farricelli]

You are very welcome!

Keep us posted on how things go with sweet Zach!

Your vet may be able to suggest some over-the-counter calming supplements (like Composure or Zylkene), before trying situational anxiety medications, based on what he or she feels may work best.