What to do!?!?
 

We love Tucker to death, but he barks at everything! I mean everything! It's even stressing Rusty out because he thinks whenver Tucker barks, which is a lot, he has to get up and run to the door to see who's coming. :rolleyes: I've tried the can with pennies, he thinks its a competition and barks louder. When we squirt him with the water bottle he feels the need to lunge at it. We're all losing our minds because he barks at everything! What can we do? Thanks in advance!

Oh Megan, I so feel your pain! Little buggers can drive you
crazy once barking becomes a habit. I am TRYING and I
quote trying to teach Teddy quiet with both a hand signal
of shhh (finger to the mouth) and quiet. Each time I do the
shh sound he actually does become quiet even if it's for a
second and I reward him and am building from there. It
takes a while but it does seem to be helping. His quiet times
are getting longer and he will break his barking to the shh
sound almost immediately now. It sometimes makes you
wish they had a little off button on them...I have also
enrolled Ted in a reactive dog class next month which I
hope helps even more. Good Luck!

I've been having luck with the water bottle on Dublin. And when he shuts up he gets Cheerios. I started being real serious about it last week, because Widget was starting to bark, too! :eek:

Hi! I'm new to YT and I don't even have a Yorkie YET but i'm loooking into getting one for late spring/summer. Until then I have been reading up on them and I can give u a suggestion from a book I read.

Take a sporty bottle and put onE-eights part vinegar to seven-eights parts water. There should be just enough vinegar to smell. If it smells to strong (to your nose), dilute it a little more. Then when your Yorkie starts barking or howling, follow him and quietly tell him or her name "Quiet"! If he or she stops praise him. If he doesn't, spray the water/vinegar toward his nose. He will be digusted by the vinegar smell and will stop barking to think about the smell. As soon as he stops barking praise him. The squirt bottle works as an interruption because your dog has a very sensitive sense of smell and he's going to dislike the smell of vinegar. Therefore it can stop the behavior without giving and overly harsh corrrection. Remember though that vinegar should never be sprayed in your Yorkie's eyes. Yorkies are small, with their eyes close together so yo must be extremly careful to not accidentally spray this solution into their eyes. Call your Vet if you do.

You can also purchase an Anti-Bark Collar. One recommended is the citronella collar for most Yorkies. It works on the same principle as the vinegar/water squirt bottle. The smell disrupts the dogs concentration and is annoying enough that he stops barking. If you do get this collar make sure it's the smallest size collar available

If you do decide to try any of these let me know how it goes so I will know when I get my Yorkie. Hope I was of some help.

The citronella collars are like $100. Our trainer just uses a citronella spray. It's aerosol and I bought it at Petsmart near the pepper spray for $10. It distracted Loki enough so that he would quiet down and then I would literally "Shush" him. I say "SHHH" and he quiets down now. Sometimes he throws a tantrum and i have to use the citronella again. The trainer says that yelling "Quiet!" at them when they are barking only joins them in making noise. The other thing I do with Loki is let him bark at the stranger/mailman/etc. for about 5 seconds, say "Thank you" and if he starts up again he goes right in his crate for a time out. He isn't allowed to bark at things IN the house, that gets him an automatic time out. Once he settles down he can come back out.

Yes! That's how I'm teaching Joey "quiet" and he's definitely improving. I recommend you try this method. Why go straight to aversives if you solve the problem using more positive methods?