I have a lovely little rescue dog. He is two , very clever and knows quite a few commands. However, he’s also very stubborn and a lot of the more complex commands are on his terms (he will only “come” if you have a treat for him and he really plays on this sometimes).
Anyway, as lovely as he is , I’m really struggling to enjoy him as I’m so anxious about him barking :( .
He’s a small breed but he isn’t yappy. He does bark at times as dogs do but I feel like I’m constantly trying to avoid a bark as to not annoy our neighbours and it’s very stressful. (Our neighbours have never complained and are very nice) .
During the week we have a good routine. He gets up around 7am and has a stuffed kong with his meal in it. This generally keeps him quiet until we leave to walk to school around 8am. When we come home he’s usually tired out from the walk and will just potter with me.
On the weekend I’m constantly on edge trying to ensure he doesn’t so much as gruff until 9am and it’s very stressful! I’m constantly refilling his kong and trying to distract him from the DC as he barks at them to play . A morning walk livens him up too much and he tends to bark more.
His barking isn’t constant. It’s single barks a few times apart when he’s playing (I remove his toy when he does this), sometimes he barks for attention (we ignore). Other times when the postman arrives or we get a delivery he is very vocal but it’s less than a minute as once we’ve “checked out the threat” he’s happy and calms down. He will often alert bark if the DC are play fighting as he perceives this as them hurting each other (this does not happen often) .
He is usually quiet mid week during the day as he tends to sleep. He’s playful around dinner time and before the DC go to bed so can do the odd spell of barking then (not constant).
Around 8pm he is very much chilled for the night unless he hears something outside and he will gruff or done one or two barks.
I’m on constant alert for it. When he goes for his final wee at night around 11pm , if he spots anything in the garden , he goes berserk and it stresses me out.
Very rarely, if he’s a bit of an upset tummy , he may need to toilet in the early hours of the morning and I’m terrified in case he starts barking at 3am!
I worry about what would happen if we ever had an emergency in the middle of the night and had emergency services over. He would go beserk. It’s always on my mind.
It sounds crazy written down but my stomach is in knots writing it down thinking of these scenarios where he will bark. I’m just not enjoying him at all because of this :(.
Does anyone have any advice?