Well exercised toy dog (1) - barking at us each evening

[MyDogTails]

My dog (1) barks at us every evening, especially me with whom he is best bonded. The problem is that I sit down at 9pm after a long day and am shattered, and the dog is barking at me. I try everything - playing with him, giving a chew, a final walk around outside the area - but nothing reliably works and I just want to sit and relax before bed.
He's a great dog who gets at least an hour's walk minimum spread across 2-3 walks, often much more.
He is a toy breed who are usually seen as lap dogs with little energy. He is neutered too.
He is not hungry. Any clues why he might be barking at me?

Toy breed, not a toy dog!!

Attention, probably. And it seems to be working, he's got you running around.... I think maybe you need to try do a bit of tough love and ignore him while he's barking. (Easier said than done, I know!)

Thanks for responding @ErrolTheDragon

That's interesting actually. I'm desperate for him not to wake the kids in bed so try everything to stop him barking. Maybe he has worked it out?

He's an adolescent and is testing your boundaries just like teenagers do. I have a pretty big yorkie who was blessed with the gift of being both a happy "toy" breed and a pig headed terrier. He is currently 9 and still has temper tantrums sometimes with a lot of angry sneezing if his food is 3cm too far away. The only thing that works is ignore, ignore, ignore. And get some noise cancelling earbuds if you can

Autocorrected yappy to happy

Yep he’s after attention it sounds like! I would ignore and tell the kids you’ll be ignoring the barking so if they hear it they don’t need to stress. He’s clearly figured out it gets your attention hasn’t he 😂

Once he has been calm for a good few minutes you can then give him calm attention, but immediately withdraw if he starts acting up again. Have you tried crossing your arms and facing your body completely away? That works on mine if they’re bothering me a lot, if it doesn’t I would get a book out or your phone and some headphones, hopefully you can crack it!

What type of bark is it? Different types of bark mean different things, is it an excitable play with me bark? An anxious bark? Your dog is telling you something you just need to learn their language., I think that you have been mis sold that toy breeds don’t have energy! My toy breed is full of energy and she is 12! Toy breeds don’t need as much exercise as a big dog obviously, but they have the energy equivalent to their size. Your dog is still very young and excitable, he could be a bit bored, have you tried a Kong to keep him entertained? I can sympathise with your predicament my dog always wants to play as soon as the soaps start......

My pup does this

He’s tired and wants to be put to bed. That means everyone upstairs, lights off so he can sleep in his crate in peace!

Mine does this when he's tired but a bit over stimulated. Needs something to do to settle him. We've found lickimats work well, or really long lasting chews like antlers or buffalo horns.

@RedAzalea

My pup does this

He’s tired and wants to be put to bed. That means everyone upstairs, lights off so he can sleep in his crate in peace!

This is hilarious 🤣

I’d never allow this behaviour… who am I kidding haha
My chihuahua shouts at me to make our bedtime ‘cuppa tea’ and harasses me to go to bed from around 9 pm 😂

Put him on his lead and make him sit next to you.
Mine would do this if I let her, but I don’t. Like you I want an hour to sit down before bed.
Even he will learn that he’s getting nothing and will just sit down.

He's doing it because you've rewarded him for that behaviour.
He barks, you fuss/play/feed him. Why wouldn't he bark?
You need to train a settle or calm on cue command and reward him for calm quiet behaviour.

www.dogstrust.org.uk/help-advice/training/settle-training

Unfortunately we often ignore our dogs when they're being quiet, and inadvertently reinforce behaviour we don't want

Ddog can be like this in the evenings I used to indulge it but less so now. He starting to learn and we’ve got it down to him resting his chin on the sofa with sad eyes and gently wooing at me instead which is actually harder to ignore because he looks pitiful 🤨

It seems like he's trained you!!!!
He barks so you do stuff to try and make him stop - but he doesn't understand that. He just knows that when he barks, you interact with him!
You need to ignore him when he barks, as PP have suggested.

Two things to try:-

Get a mat and put it out. It does need to go away unless you are doing the exercise. Pop treat on the mat , when the dog goes on the mat he gets a treat. o talking no interaction. When he is happily going on the mat wait until he sits or lies down and then treat. Over time increase the time between the treats. So basically he is being rewarded for being calm.

Another thing is before he starts barking get a chewy treat or filled kong and give it to him to prevent the barking started.

Although in theory it is possible to stop barking by ignoring it - in practice it is very very difficult to do. Nearly every owner at some point will reward the barking and then you have a more ingrained barking habit. This is all down to variable reinforcement rates if you want the geeky bit!

especially me with whom he is best bonded

Noting this, and assuming that implies you've got a DP - it may be easier to break the habit if you flop out elsewhere at 9 (eg a nice bath) and someone the dog is a bit less bothered about does the quietness-rewarding training as described by PP. We've occasionally had phases of our dog barking in the night, which we can't totally ignore as he's an old boy and sometimes really does need to go outside. But me going down even if I just wordlessly chuck him out is still positive attention, so DH has to do it. The dog is fond of him but I'm his goddess!

Yes, you need to train ‘calm’ or ‘settle’ as PP have said. You can start during the day, you don’t need to wait til he’s doing the behaviour. Short bursts of training are best.

Attention-seeking. And it pretty much always works as people will do anything to stop the barking.

You need to teach him how to settle. We would put our dog on a lead at that age so he had no option but to sit down in one spot, which made him fall asleep.

Now he gets on the sofa and demands we put him in his "blankies" for a nap!

Hi all, this is fantastic feedback!! I'm now sure that it's an attention thing as has been mentioned here. I'm going to try the tips here in turn, starting with the lead. I've done that once out of frustration and he did shut up and sit down as it wasn't what he wanted!

The bark is an intense bark while he stares at me. It's not really a playful look at me bark. But the end result is the same - I look at him