[Tallulah Bee]

As a pup, Tallulah spent a lot of time with me at my Grandmother's house, which was fine and dandy until she picked up a nasty little habit my grandmother's dogs had...

They "taught" her (i suppose that's what you'd call it) to bark at anyone that passed in front of the house. The mailman, joggers, etc. And for a while she was fine at our house. She was an only dog for quite a few years, but then the habit carried.

Now she's "taught" the other two of our lot the same nasty habit and any time they hear someone come in or out, see a car in the driveway, or otherwise, it's a 10 minute hassle trying to get them all to settle down and quit barking.

I have a hunch that it's Tallulah feeling a need to assert her dominance in the situation (because she's the leader of the pack, whether the rest of the house agrees or not), and to be heard because she's the smallest, but whatever the case is the habit needs to stop.

Tallulah and I will be leaving here in May and moving into a pet-friendly apartment. She's scheduled tentatively to go to my grandma's during the day while I work, lest her barking get incessant and lead to big trouble. But I'd rather teach her out of the habit altogether so I can run errands in peace and not worry so much about the rest.

That said, she's walked at least twice a day when the weather permits it, has a substantial amount of playtime before I leave, and has the basics to get her through in my absence. I'd like to work on training her out of this barking habit and I was hoping someone might have some decent advice on how to go about it? Obviously, I'm going to have to train the other two as well, but the methods I've tried in the past (trying to get them to understand the command "Quiet") haven't worked.

Has anyone had any success with the noise distraction method from "It's Me or the Dog?" I was thinking that would be my next best bet, but I know some of you are very experienced and I wanted to hear what you guys have in mind.

Thanks!