Our 1yr old rescue dog barks at sounds... how to respond?

[lorrelau]

Hi everyone! I'm new to the forum, since I am for the first time in my life, a dog owner !

We don't really experience a lot of problems with her, but I don't want things to escalate.. thats why I need some help with this.

Since 6 weeks ago we got a 1 yr old rescue dog from Spain, a female podenco mix. She has only known life in a shelter and has to get used to a completely new life. So far she is doing amazing! She learns very quick, and things that were once scary, are now fun (Like snow, toys, walking and my partner ).
Anyway, since last week she kind of started this annoying habit of growling and barking at sounds she hears, also at night. We live in a very quiet area, so the smallest sounds (we don't even hear them) can set her off barking and growling, the hair on her back stands up and she runs to the window.

I know she does this because she is nervous, she is a shy dog and very submissive towards new people or dogs. I don't want to correct her for this behaviour, because I am still building a solid bond with her, and I don't think it will help with her being less nervous. We first ignored it, and walked away... this didn't have any effect and the barking got louder and more often. I have tried to distract her by calling her name in a happy voice, getting some treats out of the box, or showing her her favorite toy, but once she is in this state, she completely ignores everything around her. Her most favorite thing in the world (even better than treats.. she is not much of an eater) is tummy strokes, so my technique now is as soon as she barks, I pick he up as to distract her, and talk soft to her. As soon as she is quiet I stroke her stomach until she calms down. This helped in a few occasions, but I am a bit scared that she might think barking is oke now...
Its hard to get her accustomed to the sounds, as we live in such a quiet place, most normal sounds are fine, but a weird sound like a neighbor shoveling snow, a bird landing on the balcony, a deer walking through the street... anything unusual.

Hope anyone can help or give me some tips as how I can best respond towards this behavior.

On another forum they advised me to have set rules in the house, which we have and we are consequent with them, and correcting the dog is best in this case. My boyfriend has tried this in telling her "No", which makes her bark even louder, to my opinion, in responding this way towards a barking dog, you only make them think you are barking with them... and does not stop the barking. However, I also want to train positive and reinforce good behavior, I was wondering what kind of responses I would get here

[emmabeth]

You are correct in thinking that 'correcting her' (ie, punishing her) is the wrong course of action.

When you can hear the noise - counter conditioning is the answer - you pair the sound with a reward, so do NOT wait for her to bark, if YOU hear a sound, reward her. She will over time, particularly if you are consistent iwth this, start to associate random sounds wtih rewards.
Don't worry overly about the timing here either, if you heard it and were goign to reward and you didnt get a treat fast enough, reward anyway - I tend to 'mark' a sound by saying 'OOH, NOISIES' or something similar that acknowledges that i heard it, in a nice way (i sound excited and happy like noises are the BEST thing ever).

If she suddenly starts barking at something you didn't hear, just call her with her name and reward her - you might have to get super close and in front of her and hold that treat practically under her nose at first, but thats actually fine, and again, no harsh tone to your voice, just call her name and get her attention and reward her, fun fun fun.

Your worst case scenario here is that though she stops being on edge and nervous, she starts barking for fun - as long as you have removed the FEAR it is then much much easier to teach her not to bark for fun/treats/attention.

One thing to do, (but not yet, when shes more confident) is actually encourage her to bark (so not when shes already barking), and when she does say 'speak speak' and really get her yapping away then .... at the same time... you present a treat practically up her nose, a really stinky high value treat, and you say quiet or shhh and let her eat it.

This works because a/ shes only barking because you have a treat and are winding her up to do so and b/ she HAS to shh to smell the treat and eat it, can't bark whilst sniffing a delicious treat and eating it!

Repeating this sesssion (and beign SUPER careful NOT to try to use 'shh' in a real barking context!) should teach her over time that there is a cue for barking, and a cue for stopping barking.

6 weeks is actually a very very short time, though it probably doesn't feel that way - shes probably just getting the confidence to say 'go away scary noises' and this is why you are seeing an increase in the growling/barking - don't be disheartened, if her confidence is growing in one area, it can grow in another too and anything you can do to build her confidence in herself and in you, is going to help in the long run.

Do things like clicker training, puzzle solving and lots of classical conditioning (ie, rewarding the things she does without being asked that are good!) will all help with that!

[ScarletSci]

I just wanted to say that reading your post was lovely, you sound like a really nice first time dog owner! Congrats on getting her, and welcome to the boards. It's great to see more people join who want to learn positive methods, so I hope you'll stick around and the get the benefits of this community that so many of us have found.

[doggiedad]

welcome!!! your dog barks. i wonder what would happen if you took her out
immediately and walked around the yard or house? i'm thinking it's showing her
there's nothing there to worry about. this is just a guess on my part.

[lorrelau]

Hi! And thanks everyone for the tips and the nice words
The last 2 days have been better, no barking at night and during the day only when she hears people talking. I managed to distract her... by turning on the radio and calling her to me. She immediately quiets down and when I turn the radio off (and the "scary sounds" are more pronounced again) I praise her for being quiet and calm. So far this really helped.
Thanks for the tip in teaching her speak and quiet, she is really smart and loves to learn new tricks, so that would definitely be a good one. But let's first get her comfortable .
We are playing a lot of games with her, she now understands, and loves the game "find the treat" or hide and seek with us. She also has 3 toys in which treats can be hid, she spends hours with those, throwing them around the whole room.
Either way, she is doing good, improving every day and hopefully this will stay like that!

[lorrelau]

Ohyeah, something I have also done is letting her on the balcony to check out the sounds, this worked well too, unless there is another dog, and in that case she will bark untill they are gone.