Excessive Barking When One Of Us (not Both) Is Out

[ibon]

I'm hoping someone can help with a problem we've been having with our 7 month old Lappie. He is prone to barking but understands the command 'quiet' and generally responds to it. My husband and I are finding, however, that when one of us is out in the evening he barks excessively (he doesn't do this when both of us are in). When he starts he is then very difficult to stop i.e. he doesn't respond to commands, time-out etc. Can anyone shed any light on this problem for us and give us some tips on how to train him out of this?

[sas]

Can you give him something constructive to do instead i.e. training games, treat toys, things to work his mind.

Also start applying NILIF 100% consistantly.

[Bjelkier]

I'm hoping someone can help with a problem we've been having with our 7 month old Lappie. He is prone to barking but understands the command 'quiet' and generally responds to it. My husband and I are finding, however, that when one of us is out in the evening he barks excessively (he doesn't do this when both of us are in). When he starts he is then very difficult to stop i.e. he doesn't respond to commands, time-out etc. Can anyone shed any light on this problem for us and give us some tips on how to train him out of this?

Is he inside or outside when this happens?

And I agree with Meh, give him something else to think about.

[whiskedaway]

I find with my sibe (and my lappie to a lesser extent) that they get over stimulated by something and then can't calm down. I find time out works (both get time out in their crates) or if they're being really bad, one spray with a squirt bottle is enough to snap them out of it. It doesn't hurt, but it takes their mind off what the issue was. Obviously we don't saturate them with it, and after a while it gets to be enough that you grab the spray bottle and they calm down straight away.

[ibon]

Thanks for the tips everyone. He's inside when he does this. Whiskedaway, definitely the same experience as you. Once he gets worked up he finds it difficult to calm himself down. The spray bottle works well for other issues, didn't seem to have much effect with this problem though. Will have to pursue timeout again and see how I go. In terms of distracting him, do you have any suggestions for training games MEH? He has IBD so is quite limited in terms of chewing type treats.

[Esky the husky]

What do you feed him?

You could put that into a kong and freeze it (if appropriate)

[corvus]

We have found a Thundershirt to be extremely valuable in helping calm an overstimulated dog. My Vallhund gets noisy usually when he is more aroused than usual. A few things work very well. Massage, the Thundershirt, a Kong with peanut butter and/or cream cheese, and a time consuming chew of some sort. Large raw bones will keep him busy for hours. Sometimes it helps to try to set up routines, or head the arousal off at the pass so to speak. If I think he's going to be noisy or hard to settle I make up a Kong for him before waiting to find out. I've also been experimenting with Buster Cubes and Kong Wobblers. They do a good job of distracting him and giving him something to do for a while so that he naturally wears himself out and is ready for a sleep by the time he's finished with the toys. But he gets pretty intense about them. One day he's going to put one through a wall he hits them so hard.

[sparkycat]

Some Lappies can be and are very "talkie" My Jaana has a lot to say about everything and she was very vocal and excitable in the first 12 months or so.

Please come into the Spitz thread and post some photos !

[ibon]

I need to experiment some more with the kong. I have used diced chicken and frozen it in the past but it doesn't seem to last that long. I could try freezing some of the canned food he's on and see how he goes with that. I haven't be to find many tips about what kind of chewing treats are suitable for dogs with IBD, bones seem to be out and also any rawhide type treats. I did read about someone who gives their dog with IBD a sterilized hollow cow collar bone (?), so will try to hunt out one of those next week.

Corvus, thanks for all your tips. I'll definitely be trying all of them. Do you do a particular type of massage? I've never heard about the thundershirt before but it looks great, so am going to try and get one asap.

Yep, he's definitely a talker sparkycat! Did you notice a big difference after the 12 month mark? I've been meaning to drop by the spitz thread, so must do that. Lappiemum mentioned it to me awhile ago.

[sparkycat]

Well I don't want you to get your hopes up but Jaana only "matured" and got a brain at about 2 ! I thought the males were quieter ?

Sorry don't know anything about IBD and diet

[whiskedaway]

I'm giving the Thundershirt a try too for Akira - Petswarehouse.com.au have the best deal on them. A medium would be fine for a lappie.

[corvus]

Corvus, thanks for all your tips. I'll definitely be trying all of them. Do you do a particular type of massage? I've never heard about the thundershirt before but it looks great, so am going to try and get one asap.

I do TTouch, sort of. Like this:

Sometimes dogs that haven't had massage before need to be convinced to hold still for it. With Erik we would hold him for maybe ten seconds max while we massaged and just kept doing that a lot and pretty soon he was coming back for more after we let him go.

There was a thread in General a few months ago on Thundershirts.

[ibon]

Thanks everyone again for all the help. Corvus, I'm going to have a look a the you tube video later today, thanks. I had some success last night by distracting him with a kong, ice cubes and some toys. I stuffed the kong with his z-d canned food (pretty much the consistency of cream cheese or peanut butter) and froze it. It was quite funny, after about 5 minutes he threw the equivalent of a puppy tantrum because his normal technique (raising it high and then dropping it onto the ground) wasn't working. He did go back to it though and got everything out in the end. I also made sure I tired him out with a very vigorous game of ball at about 5 o'clock. Still going to look at the thundershirt though.

[ibon]

Just wanted to add that we are having success with the thundershirt. There's a noticeable decrease in barking and over-arousal when we put it on. He's on a high dose of steroids at the moment which is dramatically increasing his over-arousal in the evenings (whether we're both home or not), and we're getting good results regardless.