surchinmy
Ultra ALPHA
Sep 25, 2004, 12:54 AM
Post #2 of 3
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Re: [thedogghouse] Help about my dog
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Aaah ... Maybe the first thing is to accept that as a breed ... Min Schnauzers can be yappy dogs ... well, they are not the most quiet of dogs ... ... They make good little watchdogs, which means that they will bark ... Trying to train any dog not to bark is not so easy ... it is afterall, a natural dog-thing ... (A) You are right ... more socialisation will certainly help ... Socialisation will teach her to be less wary of people, and more accepting of strangers. (B) You can also try to specifically recondition your dog's natural guarding instincts ... use the Search Function and check the threads using the words ... "conditioning" ... and ... "reconditioning" ... this topic has been discussed before, and there are threads giving tips on how one can go about trying to recondition a dog ... (C) Alternatively, you can try distracting your dog ... Everytime she starts to bark (or even better, just before she starts to bark) distract her with a command ... like ... "Sit" or do a "Recall" ... and if she responds without barking ... give her lots of praise & treats ... If she understands the command "NO" ... then you can try that command too. And again, if she obeys the command NO and remains quiet ... lots of praise & treats ... This requires lots of time, patience and consistency ... repeat again and again ... Basically ... it's teaching your dog to associate people in general with "good" things ... which will (hopefully) reduce the tendency to bark. Just a note: Shouting repeatedly at a dog to stop barking usually does not help ... if we shout at the dog, the dog simply thinks we are jointing in the barking ... and that can encourage the dog to bark even more ... Cheers
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