Barking help please!!!

[Liquoricecomfit]

Desperate for some advice on training a puppy to stop barking please!

We recently adopted a 6 month old little terrier mix (mainly westie, some poodle and other terrier).
She's been great in most ways (sleeping, toileting and has learnt a few commands - sit, paw, stay, lie down) and is a real little cutie.
However, she's a noisy little thing! Sometimes it's as if she is trying to have a conversation with us such as a mix of singular barks and other noises like a little whine then looks at us with head on one side for a response! But other times she can bark too much for no reason.

I have heard terriers can be more vocal than other breeds that we have had in the past so this is new to us.

She seems to bark for no reason, quite frequently on and off during the day. I am talking about when we are with her as when we are out (and this is not very often) she goes to sleep in her crate.

Her bark is loud and annoys us so am really worried she will be annoying the neighbours too!

Would love a few tips or words of advice on how we can tackle this please.

You need to reward the good. Stand in front of the dog and when they stop barking ... treat. Add this into your training regime.

Trouble with barking is that it is great fun and pretty much self rewarding so in my experience waiting it to stop even for a millisecond can take a while and not be very effective.

Also the teaching quiet command is a bit hit and miss for most dogs. Tends to end up with dog barking, owner shouting quiet dog gets a treat, dog barks owner shouts etc etc. Also pretty useless is noone is in the room with the dog.

It sounds like attention barking, you have an intelligent, lively energetic mix of dog. The head tilt though is the cutest thing

I would look at when she is doing this, is it when you are sitting down to eat, times you are not concentrating on her, when she is tired in the evening or just anytime she is not the centre of attention.

If it is localised to a specific time eg when you are busy then I would preempt this with her giving her a kong or chew toy in her bed to keep her calm and busy.

If she does bark I would leave the room (this is a pain in the arse when you are comfy on the sofa! If you try to remove her she will just dart out of the way and be hard for you to catch- another great game has been born!)

If she is barking at noises, sometimes we can not even hear them so hard to tell , I would scatter food on the ground. So she soon learns weird noise, food appears no need to bark.

If is none of the above let me know a bit more about the barky malarky incidents

Thank you so much for replying.
Polly, you have got her personality spot on!

Yes attention barking would describe it but I think she is trying to get us to do something so it is her way of telling us she wants something - problem is she will carry on until she gets it.

Common scenarios are she sits by the patio door and barks - she wants either:
1 - to be let out to the loo (this is a simple one! We let her out, job done, we call her back in and with a bit of persuasion she comes)

2 - to go in the garden and cause trouble ie digging, eating earth, splashing about (so not ideal multiple times a day, especially if it's wet). We do let her have time in the garden of course but she needs to be supervised.

She will also bark at set times such as when it is getting close to her walk time and she is trying to hurry it up, if she wants to play or for example, when a ball has rolled under the sofa and she needs help to get it etc (yes, even I can see there is a pattern forming here - we do try not to give in every time honest!)

Also, she is obsessed with chasing light/shadows about from the sun shining in or reflections from shiny objects. This is another activity accompanied by lots of barking from the excitement.

You are right about her being intelligent - she is bundles of fun but very spirited and independent and I can see we need to learn how to handle her or it will get worse.

Ok The shadow chasing has to prevented. Control and management is the first step so try to prevent the reflections, close curtains remove shine objects for a bit. Shadow chasing can become quite compulsive behaviour in some dogs so best avoided. If she does do it, remove the shadow.

Next is a chill time routine. She needs to have a quiet place _ I use a crate but you dont have to. Take her on her walk, give her her meal and pop her in the quiet space with a chew. Drop treats in at intervals quietly and calmly, no talking or interaction. Over time this area will be her chill out area and when she is in it she will chill.

I would just leave her to it with the getting ready to go out for a walk. If she barks leave the room. It may take a while to get out of the house. Alternatively if you drive to the walk put her in the car first , then come back to the house to get your coat put on your shoes etc .

I would not have balls inside, quiet chew toys only indoors. This should stop the stalking behaviour of the ball - I bet in time she will start to push the ball under the sofa to get a game

Time in the garden could be spent with scatter feeding. Throw her food on the grass and sniffing it out should tire her our a bit and also chill her out.

Scent work would be great for her in lots of ways.

She sounds a great dog

Thank you so much for your time and effort and giving me so much help to work on Polly!

I can definitely see how all your advice will be great to get started on her behaviour work.

And you are correct! - she has already started to make a game of playing with her ball while lying on the footstool so that it deliberately drops off on to the floor (I can see she has been training us now rather than the other way round!!).

We will get to work tomorrow!