# Five Month Old-Too Much Alert Barking..Do they outgrow it?



## ponyfarm (Apr 11, 2010)

So Max is five months old now. He graduated from puppy class and is signed up for the next level. He is excellent when taken out and about and I have taken him just about everywhere! 

Our issue is alert barking at home. If he air-scents something while in the yard, his tail and hackles go up and he barks, going toward the scent. He barks when someone walks in the door. He is then all waggy tail even if he doesnt know the person. (thankfully) He barks if he hears a "funny sound".

Max is overall very vocal..always talking to me and anyone who will listen.. I have gotten conflicting advice on this..some have said "let him be a puppy and bark".(from the SCHH crowd)

Some say " correct him". Personally, I dont want all that barking and have just been trying to distract him and get him to think about something else besides barking. 

Am I on the right track trying to stop the barking? I feel like he has enough DNA to kick in to bark if he really needed to..LOL! The "let him bark, he is a puppy' advice has me worried the barking will just get too extreme. What do you guys think?


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## KZoppa (Aug 14, 2010)

personally i would discourage the constant barking. alert barking is fine. one or two barks is plenty. BUT i'm also the average pet owner not involved with schutzhund. He needs to learn the control. my male barks like an idiot even after he's told to quiet. My female doesnt bark at all unless i tell her to speak. there's no middle ground between my two unfortunately. Zena used to bark and then stop when i told her to. If it bothers you, correct it when its unnecessary.


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## ponyfarm (Apr 11, 2010)

KZoppa said:


> personally i would discourage the constant barking. alert barking is fine. one or two barks is plenty. BUT i'm also the average pet owner not involved with schutzhund. He needs to learn the control. my male barks like an idiot even after he's told to quiet. My female doesnt bark at all unless i tell her to speak. there's no middle ground between my two unfortunately. Zena used to bark and then stop when i told her to. If it bothers you, correct it when its unnecessary.


Did you raise your male from a puppy? Why cant you make him stop barking? Just trying to learn and avoid that with Max.


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## KZoppa (Aug 14, 2010)

ponyfarm said:


> Did you raise your male from a puppy? Why cant you make him stop barking? Just trying to learn and avoid that with Max.


 
We adopted Riley when he was 5 months old. He had been an outside dog and was surrendered for barking too much. He'd never been in a house according to the owner surrender info sheet. He's pretty good most of the time inside but i actually try to avoid people knocking on the door or ringing the door bell or even coming inside because he just barks. With him, the problem is he had to live with my inlaws for a bit off and on and they dont do any kind of training or anything and they didnt respect my choices or rules for my dogs so he got to do whatever he wanted unless i took him with me everywhere which i couldnt do because i worked. the dogs get housetrained, learn sit and get shoved outside at my inlaws. He's usually pretty quiet until he hears someone at the door and then all bets are off and I cant even put him outside anymore without him barking. He's 7. He's actually getting worse. I havent been able to figure out how to break him of the barking even after he's told enough. He does know the command because he USED to listen to it occassionally. Short of a bark collar for him, I have no idea. I don't trust his judgement on sounds he hears because he barks at just about everything. I'm not really sure what to tell you except discourage it somehow. Even my boss cant figure out a way to discourage him and she's a pretty good trainer.


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## ponyfarm (Apr 11, 2010)

Ok, gosh, thanks for the answer. I want to discourage Max while he is young, as I think, like all habits, it will get worse with age. We are not going to do any Schh, so he does not need that in his bag of tricks!


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## Courtney (Feb 12, 2010)

I would redirect the pup as soon as the unnecessary barking started.

Because I wanted my boy to take a cue from me, if I'm not worried about it you shouldn't be either...I would command "watch me" or "come" when he would start the barking and he did catch on pretty quickly. It was generic but worked.

He's now 2 yrs old and I know when he barks now something has his attention and I owe it to him to take a look myself, he no longer 'cries wolf'


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## gsdw/me (May 17, 2011)

I have the same situation with my pup that is 4.5 mos. Old. I am excited to see the responses.


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

I let my boys bark for a moment or two. Then I ask them to 'hush'. I can tell by the bark if it's a cat or if someone is walking down my drive. Teaching 'hush' is done by redirecting, as Courtney suggested above.


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## ponyfarm (Apr 11, 2010)

Redirecting has been working really well. I also make sure to have a treat or fav toy and if he starts to bark we eat treats or play. Has helped a ton! thanks!


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## Stosh (Jun 26, 2010)

I also let Stosh bark a few times to alert me that someone's coming, but he used to have a hard time controlling himself. Instead of yelling, which sounded to him like I was joining in, I hold up my hand and in a normal tone of voice I say "Thanks, I got this". You might try holding your hand in a 'stop' signal and when he stops barking even for an instant, shove a treat in his mouth. It didn't take too many tries for Stosh to figure this one out. He liked this game so much that at first he would bark twice then run to the fridge to wait for a piece of cheese.


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

Be careful to reward 'quiet' and not the barking. I have a very vocal Lacy who is 6 months old. He found his voice last month and he is very pleased with the way he sounds! When he starts to bark I'll tell him "Lonestar! Hush!" and he'll come running to me (no longer barking). I'll then give him a few simple commands and treat him then. 

My favorite is "Look" as that requires him to look in my eyes (at the face) and not at the treat. It makes him really have to focus on me and not on what ever it was that was making him bark.


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## ponyfarm (Apr 11, 2010)

Lilie said:


> Be careful to reward 'quiet' and not the barking. I have a very vocal Lacy who is 6 months old. He found his voice last month and he is very pleased with the way he sounds! When he starts to bark I'll tell him "Lonestar! Hush!" and he'll come running to me (no longer barking). I'll then give him a few simple commands and treat him then.
> 
> My favorite is "Look" as that requires him to look in my eyes (at the face) and not at the treat. It makes him really have to focus on me and not on what ever it was that was making him bark.


 LOL..yea I was afraid he might think.."yea! woof ..treat" I am calling him, making him sit or something, then treat!

Timing is everything they say! :crazy:


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## Cassie44 (May 3, 2012)

My 5 month old is also doing this. She used to just sit on the deck and watch as people walked by, only barking if an off leash dog approached the fence. Unfortunately we have a chainlink fence and walking path that is about 30 feet from it. On an average day I might see 50 different dogs walking by with their owners. Nothing I can do about that...but the constant barking is driving me nuts. 

At first I let it go, thinking she is just giving a warning to me. But lately its EVERYTIME somebody walks by. I've tried calling her to "come" but she seems to have selective hearing when she's distracted by another dog. 
She knows how to "speak" on command, but I haven't found the off switch yet.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

thresholds play into this, genetics. I would let your puppy know that you have it under control from the get go, so the alert barking wanes.....pup looks to you instead of alerting you to every little thing.
Karlo from his very beginnings never barked. Now at maturity he does, but with discretion.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

Hans, too. LOVES to alert bark. 

Sounds very deep and manly. People are asking if it is OK to come into the house, LOL.


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## zainchaudry (Jun 19, 2012)

I taught my pup not to bark from the first day, First, when he is inside, no barking at all, no exceptions, make that a rule, always say no whenever he barks (Well first he needs to know what 'no' means lol), it took too much repition but finally it clicked. Later i took him for walks, Everytime he barked at some other dog i used to hold his face and make him sit and look at me and tell him 'no barking', and if he still did it i would pick him up from his front two paws and hold his face again and say the same thing. He would stop. Now he sees dogs, he just looks at them, and then looks at me and i say 'good boy'. Now he barks selectively, if he needs water he barks once to get my attention, thats about it. He does bark out of frustration when he wants to play with a dog and there is a fence in between lol which i believe is normal.


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## robk (Jun 16, 2011)

There is alert barking, then there is nuisance barking. Ruger will alert bark at any time day or night. I am ok with alert barking if he thinks he hears someone in the yard at 3:25 in the morning. After all, part of his job is to keep me posted if there is anything going on that needs my attention. What I don't put up with is nuisance barking. If the dog down the road starts barking, he is not allowed to answer.


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## WNGD (Jan 15, 2005)

I WANT my dogs to alert me if there is someone in the driveway or coming up the walk. I often answer the door before someone gets to the porch.

I also want my dogs to stop on command and they do; they alerted me and now I am in control of the situation. 

A nuisance barking dogs needs to be corrected and stopped within days of the issue or it can easily become an ingrained habit wherein the believe that's their job and it's pleasureful.


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