They typically go on a walk a day, give or take. If they don't go on a walk, I do some extra play time with them. Typically, they get 15 min. each of play time.
They get let outside after any crate time.
Most dogs in our neighborhood bark at passers by. Having two dogs means two times the annoying barking, so I decided to try to fix the barking.
Whenever they bark at passers by, their hackles are up, and the barking is frantic. This seems similar to how some dogs bark at the mail man. (They never seem to notice the mail man
) So whenever a jogger, dog walker, or anybody else walked passed and the dogs barked, I would tell them to sit. Once they sat I gave them treats and held their attention while the trigger passed. I thought that this would help associate good things with the passerby. I have done this for at least a month, but it has only gotten worse. Now they bark randomly at NOBODY. Sometimes they bark and I think they are barking at nobody again, and a jogger will come into view after 10 sec. of my dogs' barking. However, most of the time they insist on barking at nothing. Also, some suspicious activity causes me to think that they are simply barking so that they have a free sit for treats opportunity. First of all, their hackles are not up. Second, the barking is less frantic. Third, when I walk into the room while they are barking, they stop barking and look at me. This is not an improvement on the territorial barking, as the barking at real people on our sidewalk has gotten worse, has a longer reaction distance, and now includes more triggers, such as the neighbor watering her flowers.I would not like to use the blurry window covers for two reasons. Number one, my dogs don't have to see the other dogs to know that they are there. They will be resting in the office, when, all of a sudden, they go and act alert as though somebody is coming. There are no windows that they can see out of in the office. Sometimes, they will act up before a passerby turns the corner and is visible from our house. They must be smelling or hearing something that humans cannot. Second, I don't want to risk the windows for a bark control idea that may not work.
Ideally, I should catch the passerby before my dogs do, tell them to sit, and give them lots of treats before they ever start to react, but it is really hard to catch the people before my dogs do, and I don't want to have to spend all day looking out the window.
So, how would you stop the barking, or at least reduce the reaction distance to a more manageable one?
What am I doing wrong?
Are my dogs really barking out of the window for treats?
Thank you.
