My puppy barks at EVERY OTHER DOG HE SEES

[schnauzerfan]

Every time he sees another dog he starts barking all the time. Is this normal? I've never had a dog before and I'm not sure if this is normal or not. We even got told to stand outside the vets yesterday as he was barking in the waiting room. It was freezing cold and the vets were running 25 mins late. I was a bit hacked off to be honest. What can I do? Thanks.

[schoolchauffeur]

Judging by your name, you may have a schnauzer??
We have two- one who can bark for Britain ( at virtually anything from dogs to bikes) and another who is virtually silent until the other one starts him off.
The only place our barky one doesn't bark is at the vets!! He sits in the waiting room on his lead and as long as he is allowed to sniff other dogs and nose them he stays totally quiet- its weird!
He does bark at other dogs quite a lot on walk, but not if he is allowed to be introduced to them.
Does your dog spend anytime just being allowed to be around other dogs? I got into a dog walking group and we used to go to a beach near us quite deserted and let them all off the lead- it really helped him to see that he could play with other dogs, that they didn't attack him etc and he was a lot less barky.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

It can be normal. Barking is very self rewarding and can be a hard behaviour to crack. Obviously it is causing some issues for you, so whether it is normal or not is irrelevant. It is unaccpetable behaviour for you, so you need to train it.

How you would train for it would depend upon why the dog is barking? It could be excitement, fear, a bit of both, fustration because he wants to play but can't. If you can't tell or you're not sure why he is barking you'd be better off contacting an APBC behaviourist or APDT trainer to help you.

BAT (behaviour aversion therapy) should help with most issues if it is only one specific thing he barks at e.g dogs in your case, so if you can't afford a trainer, then reading up on BAT would help.

My pup barks when is off lead to get other dogs to chase him. I don't find this acceptable because he does it incessantly and it often scares the other dogs who then end up snapping at him. His fault, not theirs. I am working on this by stepping between him and the other dog and ending his game until he is quiet, when I release him again. He has improved dramatically since I started this, but generalisation is an issue. He now knows he cannot bark at his collie friend, or my Dad's whippet, but doesn't generalise that to his JRT friend because we don't see him often enough to have trained it well enough yet. But it can be done, it just takes time and patience, so don't give up if you don't get results straight away or if the results seem hit and miss.

[Imsosorryalan]

In my puppy book it recommends teaching a dog to 'speak' which I know you want to stop but the benefit being, you then can teach him to be quiet too. Have a look on the gwen bailey site