[courtney1121]

Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly

I would stop treating him for these incidents of unasked-for-barking as you could be reinforcing that behavior & start training him a little bit to do what you want.

Here are some ideas. There will be many ways to handle this & if done consistently and with love & patience, one of them will work. There will be no quick fix. You might tell your neighbors what is going on & ask them to be patient during the training to stop the barking.

If he's not trained to stop barking on the word "No" or "Quiet" then take aside 5 minutes a few times a day and teach him to bark on command by rewarding him every time he barks and say the words "Good Bark" and reward him with a treat/praise when he does. He'll love it! After a few days(yes, you have to wait until he's been barking on command a few days - to go forward too soon will only confuse him), during the exercise, he will tire of barking & stop for a breath. The instant he does, hand him a treat & begin to say "Quiet" the moment he stops and make a hand gesture you want to associate with the "Quiet" command. If you repeat this training exercise often enough, eventually he will learn that "Quiet" gets him a nice treat & you happy with him, giving him a nice praise.

Another way is to teach him that barking will get him either totally ignored as you stay quiet in bed until he stops(requires the patience of Job) or you will both leave the room & shut the door behind you when he barks, leaving him in there alone. After 15 minutes of quiet(this will probably take a while before he stops barking), come back into the bedroom and repeat every time he resume barking. You will have to repeat this a good bit until he begins to associate his actions with being left all alone in the room every single time he barks & you returning to the bedroom when he is silent.

Alternately, you could leash him at night, block off the area under your bed with blankets or cardboard boxes under it so he can't get under there & when he starts barking, get his leash & walk him into another room where you will leave him alone & walk out, closing the door. Will take a lot of repetitions but he will get the idea barking gets him isolated & alone. But he will bark from there! The most effective thing you can do is ignore him. Once he is quiet 15 minutes, let him back into the bedroom & repeat the process when he resumes barking.

You could crate him nights in your room & start covering the crate the instant he starts barking. He will eventually learn that's no fun & barking is what causes it. He'll likely bark from in there but leave that cover on & ignore until he learns what causes him to get put in there & you won't release him unless he is quiet for 15 minutes. When you do let him out, resuming barking gets him put back in the covered crate until quiet 15 minutes.

Put him in a covered airline carrier when he barks. He will likely start to protest so wait him out until he is quiet for 15 minutes, then release him. If I used this method, I would carry the covered carrier to another room & walk back into mine & shut the door, waiting out his barking until quiet 15 minutes. Once he's quiet, he can return to the bedroom. Resuming barking, back he goes in the covered airline carrier & into the other room until quiet 15 minutes. Repeat until he learns barking under these circumstances does not result in fun.

The hardest part of this will be ignoring the barking after he is isolated. It could take an hour so get ear plugs & take a patience pill. This is how a dog learns not to bark if he doesn't know to be "Quiet" on command.


I would start having your boyfriend read & use the Nothing In Life Is Free method of dealing with him. You can Google it & read about how easily it is done. Have your boyfriend largely ignore him & not make eye contact with him until he starts to initiate contact on his own. Have him still ignore him longer until your dog is really pawing & baiting him to play - only then have him respond - after your little one has so fully accepted him that he's just begging to play.

You can adjust these as necessary but the idea is to teach him to be quiet or teach him that barking will cause actions that get him isolated.

He is probably discombobulated at this person he sees as an interloper on his territory & needs to learn he is safe with your boyfriend & the new pack member only makes things better. There's likely a little jealousy there so he'll need to learn to accept your boyfriend as being of the leadership hierarchy in your family pack & accept his role as a follower. The NILIF method gently helps that along.

Wow lots of good information. Thank you! Question though. He pretty much knows the "speak" command so when he speaks, do i give him the treat and immediately say "quiet". I just want to make sure I'm getting the timing down right.