My wife has a little Yorkie. He’s eighteen months old and his name is Monty. We got him as a puppy last year and he was never really a barker, which was good as Yorkies can be a bit yappy.
However, just a few months ago things changed – if he heard any noise outside, he started barking. Our house is in a very quiet residential area – so any external traffic is usually audible. Of course, it’s not all bad. For example, should an intruder try to enter your property then some advance warning is a good thing. Unfortunately, Monty didn’t stop barking for quite a while after the “threat” disappeared. It started to get annoying pretty rapidly.
Luckily for us, one of my wife’s friends had encountered a similar problem with her own dog and was able to advise how she had remedied her problem. My wife decided to take her advice and resolved to treat the problem before we all went insane – or Monty met with an premature end. The approach she adopted was to get a bottle of mineral water – one of those with the “sports” type cap. Every time that Monty started barking at some external noise she squirted just a little water on him, told him that he was naughty and shook the bottle in his general direction. She didn’t shout or scream at him. He was firmly but quietly ticked off.
As it transpired, she only had to actually splash him two or three times at most. After that all she had to do was shake the bottle at him and squeeze it so that it produced a crumpling sound. That was more than enough for Monty. There was a marked reduction in his barking after just three days. After training Monty for a week in this manner the barking problem was fully resolved.
The added bonus was that Monty’s therapy was not only extremely effective, but also selective. External noises no longer trigger a prolonged barking session – but if anyone comes to the front door, or the doorbell rings, he still barks. I’m certain that my wife could treat this barking also, and using the exact same technique – but we don’t think it’s a bad thing, especially when you bear in mind that he doesn’t continue to bark once the initial stimulus has been examined to his satisfaction.
So, if your dog is a problem barker, you might want to try the water bottle treatment. It’s not unkind to the dog and it appears to be effective and fast acting. There are other ways to stop your dog barking of course, but this one is well worth a try in the first instance.
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