How to stop the dog barking when visitors come?

[PoultryInMotion]

We inherited a dog from an old family friend a few months back. She's a lovely old thing, about 10 years old and a cross breed (although very border collie-ish)

She's settled really well, very obedient on walks and has endless patience for our toddler DC.

Our only problem is that she barks really badly when we have visitors. She's fine if it's someone she knows, but if it's not, she gets really upset. It doesn't help she doesn't exactly have a normal 'doggy bark', more of a long wailing bark, awful noise!

We've tried putting her elsewhere (we have a stairgate over the kitchen door) but she doesn't settle well. If she's in the living room with said 'strangers' she will lie down, but the second the visitor gets up to go to the toilet or leave etc, she barks very loudly and I can imagine it must be very scary for the visitor.

I'm getting a little anxious about the situation because I'm heavily pregnant and anticipating a fair few visitors over the next couple of months! I also have a couple of friends who are scared/have toddlers who are scared of dogs, and I don't want them to be put off coming! Ideally I'd just like her to settle down and keep quiet.

We've tried using treats to get her to settle but she's just not motivated by food at all, she's the least greedy dog I've ever come across

Does anyone have any helpful tips? I had dogs when I was young but they were always crap guard dogs who'd at worse give a stranger a very nasty lick

We have similar issues with our rescue dog. If a visitor arrives who is staying for a while (not just a delivery), we always have him either shut in the kitchen or on his lead at the door (with me restraining him!). We ask the visitor in and get them to sit calmly, bring our dog in and ignore him until he quits barking (3-5 mins on average), when he stops we pay him attention and the visitor treats him with cheese (which he loves and gets at no other time). You could try a toy instead, or just lots of positive fuss. We've been doing this for three weeks and it's getting easier.... Slowly! It's ok if the visitor is expected, but surprise callers are a bit of a nightmare. I may even put a polite note on the door asking for a minute or so to answer the door.
I asked various people for advice and basically he's guarding himself, his house and us. I don't think he will ever not bark at visitors, but hope to get it down to half a minute.
The only occasions when it's backfired have been when the visitor is not a doggy type of person and is scared. One person said that she 'wanted to hit him'.... Won't be inviting her round again.... Best you can do is prepare people and keep things calm and low key. Or have somewhere else your dog can go, eg utility room or a crate if you use one.
Best of luck.

Thank you MrCoyne, I think I'll try putting her on a lead to see how she is. We had dog friendly visitors today, I put her in the garage to bark then when she stopped she was let out. She was surprisingly good but I think she may have recognised them as we've walked dogs toether before (although not for quite a while!) She's obviously got a longer memory than I gave her credit for!