 Update on Barking Issue
I'm getting somewhere with Max! But, it's only in the house. Now, when the UPS or postal delivery person comes to the door I yell "QUIET" from my office. Max and Cooper are already at the other end of the house barking. When I yell QUIET Max comes running to me for his treat! I suppose it's working because he stops barking. Cooper, not so much.
When we are walking it's still a complete disaster. The barking starts immediately after I put the harness on and we are at the door, ready to walk out. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes to calm him at the door and sometimes he never stops. I don't want to forego the walk so I take him anyway. Obviously not the right thing to do but I can't stop him from barking. Once outside it takes him about 1 minute and he's fine. If he starts barking I'll say QUIET. He'll look at me and then do his trick routine of sit, down and rollover in the middle of the street. He clearly doesn't get it but he's quieting. The other day on our walk he saw a bag flying on a street sign and went nuts. I couldn't control his pulling and barking. We went home.
This morning we went to the groomer and he barked like a siren from the car to the front entrance. It's totally embarrassing. She has an empty paint can full of rocks that she shakes when the dogs bark. She put my boys in a kennel and shook the can. To my surprise Cooper did not have a heart attack (he's knows the coin bottle) and Max stopped after a few minutes.
When I picked them up the groomer said Max did not bark the entire time. He stopped when I left and started again when I picked them up. So as I could have guessed, it's me.
I bought a bigger can at Lowe's today. |