Noticeable increase in barking - 7 month old pup

[Jemymah]

Hello, back again looking for some more advice please. Apologies in advance for the length, I'm not sure which bits might be important.

Our pup Casey is now about 7 months old and seems to be settling in well. She's been with us just over a month now. However in the last week or so we're noticing a big increase in barking.

She's never been on her own. We're working up to that with crate training.

Her routine is that she stays at a friends house with her dog while we're at work then home with me and my husband. She seems to get on well with the other dog and they play about most of the day. Up until today anyway. We don't walk her on weekday mornings because the other dog just wants to play from the second she arrives at his house.

At home she would have barked a bit when either me or my husband leaves. We tackled this by when one of us leaves the other does a bit of training, playtime etc and Casey usually settles down.
However on Saturday I headed out for a few hours and she wouldn't settle for my husband. Then a few hours after I came home my husband went out to meet friends.
She was fine with me for a few hours then after our evening walk nothing would settle her. She seemed to mainly be barking at the front door and to me seemed distressed, although sometimes her tail was wagging. I had the radio on low in case it was noise I couldn't hear, tried ignoring her, then tried lifting her up to the door so she could see out. Couldn't get her calmed down. Even when my husband came home she was barky and unsettled. We all headed up to bed and she settled down, slept all night.

I'd been off work Thur and Fri and she was fine just the two of us, no barking at all in the house.

Our friend said Casey barked a bit yesterday but today she apparently barked all day, no idea what at.

We had an adaptil diffuser in the house to help her settle in initally but it had ran out so I refilled it Sunday evening. She seems calmer now maybe. A few barks when I was filling her dinner Kong tonight but that's understandable and I just set the ball down and wait for quiet before continuing. No barking last night at all.

She does bark at cats, other dogs etc when we're out and we're working on that by getting her to focus on us and rewarding her. We're also doing a lot of work to get her more socialised and we're starting training classes this Sat.

Any tips to figure out what she is barking at? When she seems to be barking at nothing we ignore or walk away and sometimes it works but on Saturday night nothing I tried helped. At one point we were ripping up an empty egg carton (her favourite thing!) And she was barking through a mouthful of cardboard. I just couldn't figure out what her little doggy brain needed me to do!

She has runny eyes at the moment and we're taking her to the vets tomorrow so I'll mention the barking to them but if anyone has any ideas I'd really appreciate it. Our neighbours are already commenting about Saturday night and my friend is concerned about her neighbours.

Maybe I'm just over reacting and she's just having a few off days but I'd love any feedback if you've spotted anything that we're doing wrong. Trying not to give the pup too many mixed signals!

Thanks so much.

[JudyN]

From what you're saying, she doesn't usually get a walk in the week until evening - is that correct? If so, she may benefit from some quiet walks rather than playing with your friend's dog for so much of the time. This might be getting her aroused, and given that she's a springer x terrier, it's not going to take much to get her worked up. 'Sniff walks' might encourage calm behaviour.

Playing interactive games could also channel her energies. Impulse training is a favourite of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipT5k1gaXhc and there's a lot more ideas here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1135

I did find Adaptil took the edge off Jasper's arousal levels when he was young. If you replaced it on Saturday, I wonder if it can take a couple of days to kick in?

There could well be something she could hear or sense that you couldn't. Local cats or foxes would be a possibility. I don't suppose there was any stormy weather around at the times she wouldn't settle?

[Jemymah]

Thanks JudyN, the weather was ok on Saturday and sunny today. Casey does like being outside in the sun so that may have been a factor today when inside my friends flat. She wasn't barking when outside.

She's been quiet tonight (so far) in the house. And we had a lovely quiet walk in the park where we did a few successful recalls and had some fun puttering about.
It's due to rain tomorrow so we'll see if that makes a difference.

I'll take her a little sniff walk in the morning before we go to my friends house, I've deliberately been not doing too much in the mornings because the other dog is so happy to see her. Maybe the current daycare arrangement isn't the best for her, with her being still so young she does need a lot of quiet nap time and she's not really getting that during the day so I'll ask my friend if she can encourage more quiet time and see if that makes a difference. Her dog is a lot older so he can be calm if told. It'd be nice if the daycare could continue because it actually seems to be helping him a little. He's scared of everything and it seems that he's learning from watching her that the outside world (bicycles, prams etc) isn't as scary as he thinks it is. He's also started volunteering and performing sits etc for kibble which he was never interested in before she arrived.

The impulse training looks good, we have been teaching 'leave it' and she's been doing great for such a food motivated puppy so we'll bring in the other techniques for some variation.

She gets all her food in kongs and puzzle toys and hidden about our house, we haven't used her food bowl since the first week she was here so it's now a second water bowl. She loves shredding cardboard so all boxes are for her now. We were thinking of getting her a sandpit so might pick that up at the weekend to see what she makes of it.

She is a really good girl, quick learner and such a sweet natured pup. Couldn't ask for a better dog really, Sat night worried me because I just didn't know what to do to make it better, she seemed really upset at times.

Thanks again!

[Nettle]

You are doing really well.

Just to say - beware of asking vets/veterinary staff for behavioural advice. They are not trained in it unless they have chosen to study behaviour separately after graduation. Some of the training and behaviour advice given by veterinary staff can be truly off the mark.

[Jemymah]

Thanks Nettle, we had our first training class on Saturday and she was the barkiest pup there! But we knew why she was barking so that's ok, we can work with it and we'll see how it goes this week. The trainer said its nothing to worry about, he says from the bark he thinks she's part dachshund, he could hear her from outside the training room.
The impulse control video is great, can't believe that we're up to dropping treats on the floor and she restrains herself. Not 100% yet but such a big difference in a short space of time. She's very quick to learn.
And she was walking along beside me last night in the park, and doing some recalling. And met some other dogs all nice and polite rather than straining on her leash and barking at them.
We upgraded using just puppy kibble for training to kibble mixed in with some boiled chicken and doggy sausage and I think that's really making a difference to her level of attention to us rather than nose to the ground all the time.
Our friend is encouraging more nap times too during the day and I think that may also be helping. She still barks at any odd noise and that's understandable but we haven't had the really distressed barking. We had a chat with our neighbours too and they are both being really nice, helps that she's a wee charmer face to face!
Sorry for the massive update.

[JudyN]

Oh, we love massive updates!

With the impulse control training, don't be surprised if she does really well in the training sessions but, when you drop some food accidentally, she's in there like a shot and grabs it before you can say 'leave' - they really do learn quickly