my toy poodle puppy is 9 months old, and his first few months with me he was quiet other than when he’d get startled by his reflection in the mirror. sometime around 5 months he “found his voice” and now my worst fear has come true… i am the owner of a small yappy dog lol
the dogs we had growing up were very quiet (rodhesian ridgeback and then a brittany spaniel) and were not barkers AT ALL. so i have no experience w training to curb barking. i’ve tried: “rewarding calm”, teaching a “quiet command”, ignoring, reverse time-out, shushing, saying “okay thank you, i got it from here” (lol), even did a session w a trainer who said that every time he paused from
barking i should count very slowly to 3 and then give him a treat and say “good quiet!” which i tried for quite a while but to no avail.
when he demand barks for me to throw his toy for him i usually ignore and wait til he’s quiet before throwing it. he has thankfully grown out of barking at his reflection in the mirror.. but has not quite grown out of barking at his reflection in glass windows. he also barks when someone knocks at the door, passes by our apartment in the hallway, etc. and when we’re visiting my family (as we are now), half of the house is floor to ceiling windows and he barks nonstop at seemingly nothing i can detect outside the window and it’s driving us all nuts (especially my parents who specifically only ever got quieter breeds)
he gets 2 walks a day, at least a few mins of training every day, his meals in slow feeders/puzzles, lots of fetch and tug, usually some scent work, a play date w another puppy once a wk, and a bunch of naps. he is extremely intelligent and knows about 40 commands i’ve taught him myself. but for some reason, i can’t for the life of me get him to be quiet lol. i understand that barking is how dogs communicate and sometimes he’ll have a whole barking conversation with another dog or sometimes he’ll alert back when a stranger is in the yard… fine. but he’ll stand by the window and just bark nonstop and it’s impossible for me to get any work done. i don’t want to just have to keep him away from windows forever lol and he still barks when people are in the hallway too.
any advice would be hugely appreciated (and ty for reading this super long post) xx
the dogs we had growing up were very quiet (rodhesian ridgeback and then a brittany spaniel) and were not barkers AT ALL. so i have no experience w training to curb barking. i’ve tried: “rewarding calm”, teaching a “quiet command”, ignoring, reverse time-out, shushing, saying “okay thank you, i got it from here” (lol), even did a session w a trainer who said that every time he paused from
barking i should count very slowly to 3 and then give him a treat and say “good quiet!” which i tried for quite a while but to no avail.
when he demand barks for me to throw his toy for him i usually ignore and wait til he’s quiet before throwing it. he has thankfully grown out of barking at his reflection in the mirror.. but has not quite grown out of barking at his reflection in glass windows. he also barks when someone knocks at the door, passes by our apartment in the hallway, etc. and when we’re visiting my family (as we are now), half of the house is floor to ceiling windows and he barks nonstop at seemingly nothing i can detect outside the window and it’s driving us all nuts (especially my parents who specifically only ever got quieter breeds)
he gets 2 walks a day, at least a few mins of training every day, his meals in slow feeders/puzzles, lots of fetch and tug, usually some scent work, a play date w another puppy once a wk, and a bunch of naps. he is extremely intelligent and knows about 40 commands i’ve taught him myself. but for some reason, i can’t for the life of me get him to be quiet lol. i understand that barking is how dogs communicate and sometimes he’ll have a whole barking conversation with another dog or sometimes he’ll alert back when a stranger is in the yard… fine. but he’ll stand by the window and just bark nonstop and it’s impossible for me to get any work done. i don’t want to just have to keep him away from windows forever lol and he still barks when people are in the hallway too.
any advice would be hugely appreciated (and ty for reading this super long post) xx