Re: [pyrnet] Bark bark bark woof

[Shannon Russell <smrussel@neoucom.edu>]

The thing that has worked well for my 2 pyr's is very similar:
1.    Getting up and paying attention to the "Alert Barks" only and telling her
"enough" very quietly has helped a great deal.
2.    My solution for the night barking was a little different though.  Levi
seemed to bark no matter what at night so my new solution (about 2 weeks now)
has been to bring him in my bedroom and close the doors.  I also have the blinds
pulled so he can't see out and I leave the radio on "sleep" for an hour so that
he doesn't hear every creak and groan (my house is almost 100 yr. old, so I have
allot of creaks and groans!)

I realize this may not be feasible for everyone but he loves to sleep on a futon
mattress (dog beds that big are actually more expensive than a very well made
futon mattress and both dogs fit very comfortably together) that I've put beside
my bed.

Since Levi has been sleeping in my room I've also noticed one other strange
thing.  He actually barks in his sleep!!!  He's laying flat, eyes closed and
feet twitching like he's running and barking!!  Usually when this happens if I
pat him on the head he'll stop right away.  Has anyone else had the barking in
the sleep issue?  I still kinda think it's funny...

Shannon, Ali, Levi and 2 grumpy cats (and now I have inherited 2 turtles, lucky
me)

"Custode, Adrienne" wrote:

> I've tried a few things to deal with barking and some of them have worked
> pretty well.
>
> 1) When Luna barks, I always go to see what she is barking at so she knows
> I'm paying attention to her alert signal.  Once I acknowledge her, she has
> shown me what she is barking at, she seems to calm down a bit.
> 2) After I check on what she is barking at, and assuming its really nothing,
> I say to her in a very calm and very low voice... "Luna, its ok.
> shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, quiet".  Believe it or not, this actually works
> REALLY well.  When I lower my voice, she lowers hers right away. When I
> raise my voice and yell at her, she seems to dial up the volume.
> 3) At night, Luna prefers to sleep outside instead of inside because she
> likes the cool air, but I just couldn't tolerate the night barking as she
> ran around the property doing her thing.  Now, I put her on my large deck
> with a baby gate on the entrance so she can't run the perimeter but she gets
> to watch out over her domain.  It has SIGNIFICANTLY curtailed her barking.
> There seems to be some odd correlation between her running around the
> perimeter at night and her barking. When she is restrained to a 20x12 area
> on the deck, she only barks if something is really going on, not just for
> gratification.
>
> When all else fails, I bring out the citronella barking collar, but I DON'T
> put it on her.  I just bark into it, she smells the spray and doesn't let
> out a peep for hours (I did put it on her just once last year and she
> figured out barking wasn't a pleasurable experience).  I have heard a lot of
> dogs just bark right through these citronella collars and it doesn't do
> anything so I think this is really an individual experience.
>
> I know these guys are supposed to bark and in general I'm OK with barking to
> alert me to something amiss, but the pleasure barking was a real problem and
> the above steps seem to be working very well.
>
> -adrienne
>
> PS. A number of you gave good feedback on the invisible fence I was
> considering for my acreage a couple months ago. I wanted to give everyone an
> update.  I LOVE THIS FENCE and Luna has never breeched the perimeter.  I
> invested heavily in training time with her before we actually turned the
> fence on so she knew the "beep" when she approached the boundary meant she
> should back off.  She did receive one correction the first day, but she
> loves being able to run around all over instead of being restrained to a
> kennel.  I went with the professional variety, I think the do it yourself
> kits are probably not a good idea because the training help and guidance I
> rec'd from Invisible Fence Company was the ticket to success.  Its ALL in
> the training. She loves it and I love it too. Interestingly, all the people
> who responded to me message who were using the fence, loved it, and all the
> people who didn't have the fence said they didn't think it would work on
> Pyrs.  The folks at Invisible Fence said they have several Pyrs in Colorado
> on the fence and haven't had any problems.  They said the problem dogs were
> beagles and huskies.  www.invisiblefence.com
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to esquire@pyrnet.org with
>         unsubscribe pyrnet-l
> as the BODY of the message.  The SUBJECT is ignored.
begin:vcard 
n:Russell, MPA;Shannon
tel;fax:(330) 325-5910
tel;work:(330) 325-6500
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
org:NEOUCOM;Research & Sponsored Programs
adr:;;4209 State Route 44;Rootstown;Ohio;44272;
version:2.1
email;internet:smrussel@neoucom.edu
title:Research Administrator
x-mozilla-cpt:;-19248
fn:Shannon Russell, MPA
end:vcard