Barking at the phone - driving me mad!

[janmk]

We are not allowed to have the phone ring or the doorbell for that matter without a huge amount of barking and bedlam ! Has anyone successfully dealt with this ?

We went through this with one of ours. We caused it by running to answer the phone, in, what to him, would appear to be a stressy way. We were in the middle of a little family crisis and hadn't realised that our "stress" of taking phone calls had passed iteself on to mutt who now thought "Ringing Phone = Something upsetting".

In the end, I changed all the ring tones on the phones with a bit of success. I then would ring the house phone from my mobile, and just let it ring whilst ignoring it. I would continue with whatever I was doing i.e. reading, cooking, ironing, talking to DH, playing with DS etc and not react in any way.

If it rang for real, I would just slowly go and answer it, but keep all movements and voice tone as slow as possible.

Ringing phones were suddenly not very exciting so he ignored them too.

Hope that helps.

Mine has to go to his bed when the doorbell goes (taught with clicker). He now goes immediately without being asked. Could you train him to do that when the phone rings?

Give him a biscuit whenever the phone rings so he learns to associate the phone ringing with something nice not stressy barking.

Thanks - useful advice I think. The worse the bedlam gets the more I am rushing to get him out the way. What we do about all the other noises in the street that set him off I don't know ! Feeling at my wits end today !

Have not tried clicker training but may consider

Tin with pebbles in shaken each time the trigger noise happens can distract them for that split second, then praise for quiet. But it is not for all dogs, make sure the noise doesn't distress him or her. It does work though with consistent goes.