How to stopdog barking in the garden so she does what she is supposed to do and not PEE ON MY CARPETS!

[smartiejake]

We have foxes living in the garden next door and lots of squirrels. My dog often charges around the perimeter of our garden barking her head off at all hours of the day and night. I always call her in when this happens as I do not want her to disturb the neighbours.

A few weeks ago after some intensive training I managed to stop her doing it but now it's all started up again.

The main problem is that now she is not doing her business out in the garden as too preoccupied with scaring off the foxes and I am frightened to let her stay out there for fear of disturbing the neighbours. SO she is peeing all over the house.

HELP!

Hey, i dont have much advice, but our neighbours hand a bird feeding thing on our clothes pole (dont have a clue why not in their garden, but dont have the heart to ask) Anyway! My dogs go off their heads at the birds. Our neighbours are old - in their late 60's/early 70's i'd say. Soo i try and keep them quiet. Taking the girls out on their lead into the garden before letting them off helps, but our male still barks like mad on the lead while running for the birds.

Yep tried the lead thing. She will not go if she's on the lead. I also put her extendable lead on and tie her up out side but she won't go then either!

You can teach your dog to wee on command. Make sure you choose a sensible command though. I feel v. embarrassed standing in the garden and saying 'Do a wee, do a wee.'

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can you try the reward thing - ie a tiny bit of cheese or sausage or something - give it to her every time she does something you want - eg when she comes in when you call - she will then associate that as a positive experience. Same with weeing outside. Ignore when she does things wrong- ie no reward.

And when she barks call her to you and reward for coming. Also try going out with her and distracting her with a game - then gradually she will forget about the foxes (hopefully).

Here's how I did it with my dog:

Wait till you know he must be ready for a wee; let him out; direct him to the part of the garden he wees in and don't let him wander off to any other part; wait till he wees; as soon as he starts to wee, give the 'do a wee' command and then praise/reward him.

Repeat a few times until the command becomes associated with the act.

oh and perhaps while you are training him you could just give water at certain times, so you have control over when he will need to urinate.

I would recommend clicker training for this as you can reward her the second she is quiet or the second she squats for a wee outside.

You can buy them at most pet shops now and they usually come with a brief set of instructions.

Basically you 'charge up' the clicker by doing several click/treats in a row so that she starts to associate the sound of the click with the reward. Then you use the 'click' to indicate to the dog the instant that they behave in the way you want them to and then reward them for the behaviour.

Ie she associates the sound with the reward and then makes the connection that repeating the desired behaviour is rewarding, whereas repeating the undesired behaviour is non-rewarding. What you are actually doing is marking the exact behaviour you want her to do in a very precise way so that she can make the connection. (We often indadvertantly give out inconsistent or confusing signals to dogs when we are training them, the clicker eliminates the need for hand signals or commands in the first training stages and therefore minimises or eliminates the confusion.)

Dogs tend to pick-up clicker training really quickly and it can be used to teach or modify just about any sort of behaviour.

Another reason for using the clicker is that they get very keyed into it and getting her obsessed with the clicker is obviously a much better option than having her developing an addiction/obsession to the foxes/barking behaviour.

Choose one behaviour to fix at a time and do short (5 mins max) training sessions as regularly as possible with her.

this is a good site for learning about clicker training but their clickers are a bit pricey.

I would try one of the cheaper ones from somewhere like here first.

As an alternative, one of my dogs can be a bit of an obsessive habit former. We have got her totally obsessed with one particular squeaky ball (we have several of them though, just in case). This means that if she is doing something undesirable, eg barking obsessively, rolling in yucky stuff, running off, all we need to do is squeak the ball once and she comes flying back to us to get it in an instant.

We got her obsessed by playing with her with the ball lots and then limiting the time she is actually allowed to have it. She literally only gets a minute with it each time we use it and this maintains her obsession.

The toy/ball has to be kept out of her sight and reach at all times until it is needed for this to work, but it might help you to interrupt the foxes/barking behaviour and distract her long enough to reward her for weeing outside.

btw, my dogs weeing commands are 'be quick' or 'get busy' depending on the dog - far less embarrassing in public. (They also have one for 'the other' which is 'business'.

we say do wee wee

no advise about foxes