Sorry this is long but please any ideas would be very appreciated.
My dog is being driven mad each evening by cats and foxes. We moved last year so this is a new ish behaviour with this season.
It started out with hearing foxes behind the fences and so he started bolting out the door barking every time he went out at night and pacing around whining when he was kept indoors.
Then this expanded to an obsession with seeing cats out the window. If he has seen one out of one window he wants to run round checking all the windows and then will bolt and bark in the garden.
To be fair to him the foxes and cats round here are brazen and wander around in the day and will go in the garden right near our house even if our door is open so he does see a lot of them.
We are currently managing this by:
- closing off doors in the house so he can’t run around madly
- Closing doors and curtains so he can’t see out
- distracting him if he’s barking in the garden throwing a ball etc
- We’ve been trying to teach “shhh” but not sure if we’re doing it right I think he thinks we’re just running down the garden after him with a treat and asking him for a stay, as he goes quiet / stays still, gets the treat then carries on
- Trying to get him into carrying his ball around (he’s not really into this)
- we get him to sit and stay before going out the door which he does but once it’s open he just bolts out
- late at night we’re taking him out in the garden on the lead so he doesn’t disturb neighbours
- we have added in an extra walk just before evening time to make sure it isn’t pent up energy. This hasn’t made a difference except he sleeps soundly once settled down after barking.
- We’ve added in an extra brain game in the evening, kong, toy in ice, treat in a box or similar which distracts him but then he still seems to need to do the pacing, checking, barking etc afterwards.
Any ideas would be great??? I’m at my wits end because I feel like we have really tried some good things and really been consistent keeping them up but It has been a few months now and he’s not got better at all, if anything he keeps getting worse
and has now the last few days started barking in the mornings too while madly sniffing the whole garden for cats and foxes who’ve been there in the night!!! Please help!!! Did I mention he’s a springer - beagle cross. What were we thinking!!!
