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Have a dog that barks at 2 dogs when they pass the house. How do we get him to stop?
He is a beagle who will only bark when he needs to go outside or wants more food. We are very lucky. But, there are 2 dogs that don't socialize with other dogs that he barks and howls at when they pass by the house. The owners of the 2 dogs think he is adorable and laugh when he does this but we want this behavior to stop. Other dogs in the neighborhood also bark and growl at these 2 dogs too.
Answer:
OMD! I can't believe the answers that some people offer in this area. I'm going to try and stay off my soapbox, but this one will challenge me mightily. I'll answer the question, then try my best to avoid a tirade.
Yes, you are very lucky that your Beagle doesn't bark much more than you indicate he does; it's part of their built-in behavior (I very highly recommend that all dog owners research their breed, particularly the parts about what they were bred to do). DO NOT, under any circumstance, use force to try and curb his behavior. Not only can this damage your relationship, but it also teaches your dog that force is an acceptable way of responding. You basically have two major categories of choices: management or training.
Management is simply setting up the environment so that he has no opportunity to see (or possibly even hear) these two dogs and respond to them. This could include moving the furniture around so that he cannot look out the window, putting up curtains, restricting his access to that part of the house at the necessary times or all of the time, or even double-fencing in the front/side/back yard.
Training will probably take a lot of patience and persistence. There is an excellent article on Counter Conditioning and Desensitization (CC&D) that may be of help to you - see the Source List below. What you essentially want to do is get him to give a different behavior than the one he chooses now. You could teach him to lay down, go to another room, or even find a toy and play with it. Baby steps to a specific behavior is the way to go. And, of course, you can use both management and training to acheive your goals.
Lastly, the owners of these two dogs are not helping at all, and are actually actively contributing to the problem. Talk to them and see if they'll at least stop the antagonizing of your Beagle and just walk on by. They might also be willing to help you retrain your dog simply by letting you know in advance when they'll be coming by, so you have the opportunity to set up a training session.
Okay, I can't just let it go: rant mode on.
Shock collars should only be used by people who thoroughly understand operant and classical conditioning, dog behavior, have received professional training in the use of this equipment, and are experienced in its use. And even then, I've only found one possible use for them that I have yet to find a dog-friendly alternative to. Otherwise, you'll likely be screwing up your dog in ways you may never even realize, and you're putting anyone who comes near the dog at risk.
Don't yell at your dog. Dogs are roughly equivalent mentally to a two year-old human. Would you yell at a child to try and teach them something? Do _you_ learn very well when someone is yelling at you? And again, do not use physical force, as you'll only teach your dog that using force is acceptable (think bite).
Back to force again, the only use for a rolled up newspaper is for hitting the owner for doing something ignorant. Okay, hitting the owner is a joke, but I'm not kidding about the ignorance part.
Force yet again. Are you kidding that the dog won't know that you're the one holding the newspaper you're napping him with?! Do you train your child with a newspaper? I hope so, but only by reading it to her and not by beating her with it.
Dan W makes an excellent point about body language, the physical characteristics of a dog, and how those impact a dog's response. Curly tails, too. Just something to keep in mind.
And breaking the "LOOK - STARE - BARK chain" is part of what the CC&D methodology I mentioned above is all about. But don't use leash corrections to do it - that's just another overt use of force.
The problem with just spritzing him with water and/or giving him a timeout is that you're only teaching what you don't want him to do. For best results, you generally want to pair a "don't do that" with a "do this instead" - again, back to CC&D. You'd also have to respond with the squirt close to 100% of the time with excellent timing (within a few seconds at most of him starting to bark) until the behavior is extinguished - an unlikely possibility in most cases. He's also already been triggered at that point, so it may be ineffective anyway.
Why do we still use force with dogs? Because they'll put up with it and because we can. Imagine using force-based techniques with anything other than a dog. It would run away or kill us. Just talk to anyone who's trained orangutans, dolphins or orcas. Exotic animal trainers have been using positive reinforcement training for decades, and too much of the dog-training community is still too caught up with the use of choke chains, electronic collars and fear to get dogs to do their bidding. There is a much better way, for both the dog and the human.
Rant mode off.
Sorry 'bout that, but I'm a dog-friendly trainer who uses scientifically proven principles to understand and modify dog behavior. Read books by Jean Donaldson (Culture Clash), Patricia McConnell, Ph.D. (The Other End of the Leash) and Dr. Ian Dunbar (Dr. Dunbar's Good Little Dog Book) and lift your veil of ignorance. - g^2
P.S. Ignorance is not a bad thing in and of itself - it just means you don't know. The problem is if you persist in being ignorant.
The more I learn about dog behavior and training, the more I realize I don't know much. BTW, OMD is Oh My Dog :-)
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