Labrador Barking For Food

[Just love my dogs!]

http://www.k9pro.com.au/pages.php?pageid=52

Triangle of temptation - above link.

I'm not sure how it would stop barking at 5am, but it does get the dog a bit more obedient generally. Well it has for mine.

My dog sometimes has a barking fit in the middle of the night, and she sleeps next to me. If it's only a cat, then I ignore the barking. I try to shut her up with distraction long enough to hear if it's burglars or people she's barking at.

She also barks a lot at meal times, but she doesn't get any dinner until she is quiet.

Another way to shut her up, is to tell her to "speak" and reward/good dog when she barks, and repeat. She shuts up while she tries to figure out what she needs to do to get the treat, and then I teach "quiet". Ie once you have "speak on command" working, then you can get "quiet" working.

But for 5am barking, I think I'd be setting alarm for 4:55am and bringing him in and putting him in a crate. If people in your household are getting up at 5am, he would be barking for attention, or to be allowed back in, more than for food. They can hear when we get up. Get Mr 5am, to shut him inside somewhere safe. Don't feed until a more reasonable time for dogs to be awake.

Also - around here, the magpies start up at about 5:30am, so there may be some outside trigger apart from Mr 5am that is setting the dog off, and you need to teach him to "leave it" or "quiet" when that happens. The best way is no attention, and you can't really allow that when he's outside barking and waking the neighbourhood up. So inside with crate. A big crate, but a confined space where he can't do any damage to anything important or expensive.

I think a crate does sound like a good idea. How do you think a 14 month old would go? Do you need to start using the crate from day 1?

[Just love my dogs!]

Have you tried letting him in when he barks, not feeding him, and going back to bed ?

Or, just paying him some attention when he barks ? Obviously this isn't something you'd do for any length of time given it's 5am, but it might sort out whether it is in fact food or attention. Then you can start looking at solutions.

Our boy gives one or two barks when he's ready to wake up (he sometimes sleeps in the laundry), we just put him outside so he can do his business and spend a bit more time exploring and until we're ready. We walk him, then feed him a bit later when we're ready (and when he's settled down from walk). Usually ends up being around 7.30-8am.

That would make the situation worse. He would be being rewarded for barking and it would continue. I certainly wouldn't be happy getting up at 5am because the dog wanted attention.

Well, not necessarily. Steven Lindsay made the point at the NDTF conference that you can't reinforce something a dog is doing using a reward other than that they were wanting. So if the dog wants food and you reward with play, you're not necessarily rewarding the food-seeking behaviour.

HOWEVER, IMO you have to be careful not to then create a new expectation for whatever reward you do use instead. I think the trick with these things is to keep moving. Don't let the dog learn a new routine until it's the routine that you want. You have to keep changing what happens until you've got him where you want him.

If this were me, I'd do the thing where you bring him in before he starts barking and feed him then and gradually move it forward every day as well, only I'd be inclined to give him something like a Kong with peanut butter in it or a pigs ear rather than his meal and then give him his meal later when you want him to have it right from the start and inch the Kong towards the meal time. I would also be inclined to phase the Kong out as fast as possible. Depending on how bad he is, maybe not even every day. You could try a Kong some days and just a cookie on others, for example. Or give him a cardboard roll with a bit of vegemite or something smeared on it so it's only just barely food, but something to chew on and keep him busy. I'd prepare these things the night before so he's not hanging around watching me make them at 5am and we can get back to bed asap. I think it's important when you are trying to break a habit to just do whatever needs to be done to prevent the habit being practised and then shape the behaviour you want. I'm more comfortable distracting and rewarding before the problem behaviour starts and then fixing up anything I might have accidentally rewarded later than punishing or ignoring.

Thank you for giving me some great ideas. I think the Kong plan could work. When he has a bone, he is busy for hours!

[Just love my dogs!]

Thanks so much to all the people who gave ideas or suggestions!