The barking is really distracting and I need some help !
If she is sat on someone's knee she will settle down but she connects use of indicators with getting there so starts the whining and barking.
If she is attached in the back and we are doing the school run or going to dog training she whines and barks all the way. It is distracting and really loud.
Has anyone found anything that works ?

Have you tryed a crate with a blanket or a soft crate. Some dogs do better in the car when they can't see what's going on about.

Lots of boring journeys that don't end in anything exciting for her might help - she'll know the routes to the fun places of course but it might help teach her that not every journey is an exciting one.  And then you can try heading for the fun places but changing route if she starts up.  Can be very time consuming and tedious for you though!

In an ideal world, you'd pull over every time she starts and move off when she stops but of course, that's not the safest method :-P  I have done it to a point though, very early in the morning and on a very quiet road and it did help but it's rather limited in practicality!

Keep taking her out in the car but not to go for a walk all the time. She needs to stop thinking car=walk=fun.

Not every journey ends in fun, I tend to take her everywhere with me.
I will try the crate in the boot but don't think it will be popular !
I don't think she is nervous, just very excited.

I lived with a bitch who screamed blue murder in the car

Pure excitement, but dreadful to drive with.  

Tried all the usual suggestions, stopping the car every time she made a peep and waiting until she was quiet, but after a year, it was clear that this was never going to work :-(    actually, I think it may have made her worse.   Difficult to tell.    We also tried the crate with a cover over it.    Tried lots of 'pointless' journeys.   No difference.   She did marginally get a tiny bit better when I tried putting her in the hatch at the back, but would still whinge non-stop.   And when the car stopped, she'd scream the place down.

We stopped showing her because of this.   It was so unpleasant.    It also upset the other two dogs.

The only brief respite we had  was after she  was speyed.    But that was just the journey to the  vets, any other journey was business as usual.

I don't have any answers, we never cured  her.   We just reduced the number of journeys we took with her in the end.  At times I was afraid someone would report us to the RSPCA she was so bad :-(     

Her daughter and grand daughter are fine  in the car!   

CSJ do a herbal mix for exciteable dogs.   I've used it for my youngest bitch who was so exciteable she wagged her tail until it bled at one show!   Calmed her without losing the sparkle.    It may work for car excitement.   Never tried it with my screamer as by the time we had it, I couldn't even contemplate taking her in the car.

Cage (makes life so much easier and safer too) with a nice bone or hoof or similar to chew?

I forgot to mention, all my dogs travel in a cage/crate.   Safer for them :-)     with my screamer, all chews/bones etc were ignored.    She'd wind herself up good and proper.  Most determined dog I ever met.

In our case, I think a great part of the problem was that  ultimately her behaviour was self-rewarding.   No matter what, every journey (apart from going to the vets) ended in something nice.   Either going somewhere exciting or novel, or even familiar.   The journey home was always quieter as she knew where we were going and I'm sure, understood from our body language etc that this was going home, so she didn't go into quite the frenzy of the outward journey until we arrived.

I do hope the OP can figure out a way to prevent/retrain this.   It can ruin a nice day out and is extremely wearing/distracting whilst trying to drive.

Dill I have one dog who is exactly the same. My dogs travel in car crates and he starts to bark as soon as we get to the end of the road and continues to do so until we reach our destination - he can bark for 2 hours solid :-( I have tried all the suggestions mentioned and have never found a way to stop this behaviour. It doesn't matter where we are going the outward journey is always accompanied by barking but he is usually fairly quiet on the way home. I tried driving just a mile or so and then stopping and getting him out for a short walk in the  hope that he would then think he was on the way home again and would revert to his quieter "return journey" mode - it didn't work. The other dogs are silent when travelling thank goodness, one of them sometimes gives a little bark when I open the tailgate but it's very short and he stops when asked to and one dog rarely barks anyway and never in the car.

I too don't take him on long journeys anymore as it is too distracting and the noise really gets on my nerves after a while. He is perfectly happy to sit silently in the car on the driveway - I often pop him in one side of the rear crate if I am cleaning the inside of the car in an attempt to show him that being in the car doesn't always result in something exciting happening and he loves just sitting watching the world go by whilst I am doing this, and manages to do it silently. I can turn the engine on without a peep from him, drive 100 yards along the road and he starts barking.

Our boy barks in the car, except for on motorways if we're going full speed. Covering crate didn't work, nor did anything else. Drove us potty so we now have a van! Problem solved :)

Its a long shot but could you try teaching a bark on command at home and then teach a quiet command. Then with a little luck the quiet command may stop him in the car. Luckily I have never had a barker in the car.
Aileen

I did this Merlot!  It was her party trick along with high fives.    Never made a bit of difference, but stopped her barking unnecessarily in the house, so partial success.

We also did the leaving her in the car outside the house - not a peep (going nowhere)    After a journey I would leave her to calm down in the car before letting her out - never made any difference, she'd stop barking/screaming whilst on her own in the car, but as soon as we approached to let her out it would all start again.

We really did try everything over the years, and gave each new idea 6months to a year before giving up :(

May work for another dog though :-D     I doubt there are many like my bitch - she was a one-off!

One of my bitches was noisy in the car. I used to drive to the nearest layby (about 250 yards from the house ;-) ) and let her out. She was quiet then  until we were near the destination where she would start again. I have no idea how she knew we were near but she did. I never found another way to stop her.

I used to see/hear a guy driving with 2 hysterical collie type dogs when I lived in NZ. He always drove wearing ear defenders, I was going to say this must be pretty dangerous not being able to hear anything but with the din his dogs made he was in that position anyway.

I have the same problem with my Dobe, it all came to a head one day when she was barking with such gusto that she poo'd in the car, one of my poor Chows was so disgusted that he hurled himself onto the middle seats and tried to get on my lap. The look of horror and revulsion on his face said it all. Unfortunately she hasn't been in the car since except for emergency vet visits as it is too dangerous.

Sorry to have no advice, but you are not alone.

I have stood in a woodland car park for nearly an hour waiting for the noisy dog to stop barking so I could get him out of the car - trying not to reward the barking by letting him out ready for his walk. It was mortifying :-) other drivers were looking obviously wondering why on earth I was opening and closing the tailgate of the car like a yo-yo - barking stopped so started to open the door, barking commenced again so shut the door, and on and on it went.

Another dog walker who had arrived at the same time as me returned to their car after their walk and asked me if I was trying to wait for a quiet moment before getting him out - the other dogs were sitting patiently waiting beside me - and then commented that having heard him they thought I would still be there waiting next weekend when she returned again with her dog. If it hadn't have been so cold I would have been tempted to leave him in the car whilst I walked the other dogs but probably would have returned to find someone had broken into my car to release the "poor dog who was obviously distressed as it hadn't stopped barking" :-)

Oh, this brings back memories.....my first dogs were two ruby Cavalier litter brothers, very sweet and cute...but on car journeys the dear little things behaved exactly like the baby in the Volkswagon advert - every time the car stopped they barked and barked as loudly as they could. :-(
Despite this very annoying trait, which I never managed to curb, we took them all over the country and even to Southern Ireland. Not so many traffic lights there, but the stops still occurred as flocks of sheep were prone to wander along the road accompanied only by small boys...
I am so glad our most recent dog is a greyhound, who hardly ever barks at all. :-)

Harley's comment  I tried driving just a mile or so and then stopping and getting him out for a short walk in the  hope that he would then think he was on the way home again and would revert to his quieter "return journey" mode - it didn't work.
reminded me of my first GSD, he didn't bark but did that loud high pitched 'shepherd whinge' non stop but the Harleys method worked with him.

Longest journey was from Suffolk up to Castleton in Derbyshire and back as a day trip. It is about 180 miles each way. About 5 miles out from home I stopped, took him out of car, walked about 2/300 yds up a forest track and back to the car.
I never had a peep out of him the whole rest of the journey :-) :-)

He must have thought we were on the 'scenic route' for the time it took to get back home!!!

Oh Harley I do sympathise.    Been there, done that, etc.      It is mortifying, and I did get some nasty comments, which then made me worry about RSPCA.     Even tried walking away and giving the other two their walk.     It was at a local Lake and we could hear her across the Lake :(

Been on so many pointless journeys I began to think I was losing the plot.

Wish I had an answer, but we never found one.

Thank you Dill :-) I have just come to accept it now, still find it immensely annoying and distracting and am just relieved that the other dogs haven't decided to copy him :-) I had always said I couldn't live with a barky dog and wondered why people didn't train their dogs not to bark - now I know they must all have a Cooper dog :-)

I would say that most dogs, with the right training can be trained not to bark incessantly.

But not all.

I always said about our screamer (and it was screaming rather than barking)   that she would cut the nose off her face to spite herself.    She was that stubborn and determined.  A very strong character.

And we miss her every day :(

Our barky dog was a rescue who came to us with lots of bad habits - he is in fact the hardest dog to live with that we have ever owned and has many odd little quirks but we have learnt to accept him for who he is and manage him in a way that suits both him and us.

Having said that he is a real character and you couldn't wish for a more loving dog. I think sometimes we just have to accept that some dogs are the way they are - he didn't have a good start in life and spent the first 5 months shut in a kitchen cupboard. He has matured somewhat over the past 6 years but seems to have "plateaud" now :-) People often think he is a puppy still - he is but a 7 year old puppy :-)

Dill,

I find your comments about the screaming really interesting. Is it similar to the noise racing whippets make as they are about to be set off after the lure? That noise is an incredible din but, as you seem to imply, appears highly rewarding for the dogs. They are literally squealing and shrieking with excitement and remind me of girls at a boy-band pop concert where self-induced hysteria is a learned but self-rewarding behaviour.

Yes, That's the noise.  Pure excitement.

She could keep it up for hours at a time, but only in the car, thank goodness!  

I call my Bedlingtons the woolly Whippets :-D   they have several similar traits, and the terrier only comes out to play when they are in 'working' mode.   It's like they have an on/off switch in their heads

Nando is bad in the car. If we stop and he decides something is too close to the car he does his big man defnsive bark, if there is nothing close to the car it's his excited whine. When the car stops he will eventually shut up and i let him out the car. My behaviourist tried him with some children's sun shades to take away some of his view and it worked somewhat so I need to invest in those!

Another suggestion is trying to get them to lie down in the car, which also worked but he won't do a 'down' in the car as he has very restricted space and it is hard to reward him from the driver's seat!

It is funny that you mention screaming as that is exactly what she does. She screams with some barking.
I will try the cage this week and report back.

I don't see that anybody has mentioned what I find effective.  It's not for the same kind of barking but it might be worth a try.  My boy will alert bark.  For instance when new neighbours moved in and he saw them out in the yard.

I laugh at him.  "Ha, ha, ha, you big silly.  That's not something to bark at.   You made a mistake."  It works.  I make it more a laughing AT sort of laugh than a laughing With one.  It seems to work well for us as a mild chastisement and I think as a reassurance as well because if Mum was worried about the stranger next door would Mum be laughing?

Dunno, worth a try?

Jetstone Jewel,

I think for alarm barking this is the right way to go since you are showing the dog that you have heard them but are also communicating that their job is done and you will now take over.

St Domingo,

If you feel that the indicator noise is the trigger and she does not start to whine or bark before that sound- you'd need to be very sure of this- then one thing to consider is trying to stop that noise being a trigger.

This sounds a bit bonkers but you could consider recording the sound of your indicator and the attendant car noises (relevant gear changes etc..) on the journey to the dog class and put it on a loop. You then start to play that recorded noise at home and constantly in the car. The idea would be to scramble the significance of the noise and what it predicts. From what you have said it does sound as though your girl is addicted to getting herself into a tizzy and perhaps the indicator noise triggers a learned behaviour. Have a think about this and perhaps chat it through with a trainer or behaviourist as to whether it could work- I'd hate to make your problem worse by setting her off in other contexts, so it is worth chewing it over first.

The problem with self-rewarding behaviours, as this one might be, is that you only have a number of options, to stop the behaviour being triggered in the first place (has the dog enough outlets in her daily life to dissipate her possible tendency to OTT behaviour?); train her to do an alternative/more rewarding behaviour/ make the existing behaviour unrewarding.

Sorry, meant to add that it'd be worth trying the crate and perhaps to block out some of the stimuli- so partly covered, though obviously allowing enough air in.

If I am on my own with her she barks all the way on the journey out. Thankfully she settles down for the journey home.
The  car indicators only set her off if she is on someone's knee. She settles down on someone's knee for the journey out, but when we have been travelling for a while and I start to use the indicators she connects this with getting to our destination so starts the screaming and barking.
Funnily enough she was quiet for a while on a journey last week because she stood up looking out of the rear window.
I think that it is just excitement, she actually seems to like going out in the car.
She is a toy breed and they seem to be known for being vocal. Perhaps I will go for something a little more sedate next time !

Try taking her to the vet a few times in the car - that will sort her out!!!    But seriously have you considered trying a citronella collar .   Not like an e-collar this apparently works.   And I'm considering one for my Whippet who yaps at anything that moves outside and drive me nuts.   She doesn't do this in the car (she's crated in the car and has been since the day we brought her home - without a sound) but anybody slamming a car door outside, and coming to the door - horrors.   Trouble is when people like the postie come, put something in the letter box, she yaps, they leave ..... RESULT, in her eyes!   These collars are not cheap, but reading the feedback on Amazon, they work.

Some vets have them on a lend basis, might be with asking.

Do they (lend them?)   I must ask because to shell out what these cost, for my Whippet, may be a step to far just now.

mamabas,

I would sound one note of caution there. Just be sure that your girl is not barking out of fear or alarm and that it is OTT excited behaviour.

I say this because technically a citronella collar is a punishment and if your dog is anxious or fearful she will still experience all those feelings but possibly suppress and internalise them, which is not good long-term.

However, as I said earlier, where barking is a self-rewarding habit, it might be necessary to make that behaviour unrewarding and this might involve punishment/negative reinforcement. You just need to be clear about what is motivating your dog and very careful about using something like a citronella collar.

With regard to the letter box, I would not use a collar there. Try spending half a day shoving treats or favourite toys through the letter box. Leave a bag of dog treats by the door outside and ask the postie to put some through with the mail. This way you can get your girl to associate the sound of the letterbox with goodies and she will start to look for those when she hears all the door and letterbox noises. But you need to train that association first yourself by doing the above.

Just my thoughts, others may disagree.

Point taken - and thanks.   I'm undecided about this collar to be honest, much as it's not fear, or excitement imvho.   It's just her protecting her territory.   And if you saw her, from the outside, you'd run  LOL.   The trouble is the front door is at right angles to the living room window, so the person at the door is standing right outside the window, not alongside.   She's just done it with a neighbour - embarrassing!    She also sounds off at any car door slamming out front.   She's my first (and probably last) Whippet after years and years with my first love, the Bassets who don't do this .... in fact when she sounds off, my current boy leaps to his feet and looks at me.   He doesn't make a sound.

I have thought about putting the net curtains back up to stop the vision thing (she can't get right to the window) but basically I hate nets so would much prefer not to have to do that.   The front door has a lobby behind it, and a door from the living room, so she's not actually AT the front door, just on the sofa in the living room.

Thanks anyhow.

My last retriever was like this at home, though not in the car thankfully. If anyone had the temerity to walk past the house, knock on the dog or the neighbours go to their door, then they were greeted by a volley of barks and not friendly ones either. It caused several embarrassing moments over the years. I did consider using a citronella collar, but I'm not sure it would have been effective to the cause of her barking. I tried all sorts, but she just had to bark at people. In the end we just managed the situation and kept an eye on her at all times and removed her from the situation. Basically it was a temperament fault. Current pup goes the other way and adores everyone and have had an equally embarrassing moment today when she hurtled across an enormous field to go and greet someone coming over the stile at the far end. Luckily she came back just as quickly once she had said hello (with all four feet on the ground, phew) and we knew the person and could apologise with good grace. But she's a big dog and not everyone will greet her with pleasure, sad really as she's such a happy soul, but I can see her spending some time on a long lead until we can train her out of it.

It is moot as to whether alarm barking involves a fear element. In my view it probably does. if we use punishment in those circumstances then the dog may suppress the barking but continue to feel anxious. far better, in my view, to try to change the dog's perception of the stimulus if possible. Or teach the dog that it only has to bark once or twice to alert you and then you take over and decide if the stimulus is worth noticing. in dogs that have been selectively developed to guard and sound the alarm the latter is probably a better route, in my view.

If you don't like net curtains you could try the stick-on glass frosting? It's actually quite nice looking if you get a good quality brand. One of the dogs I walk is reactive to squirrels in the garden and so they've got it on the bottom half of their patio doors and it looks quite nice.

How would you train that sort of thing Freelancer? Not questioning the integrity of your methods (which I fully agree with) just not sure how you would train it? My GSD is very guardy of our back fence and it's not helping that the owners of the house there chopped down the trees which muffled their sounds. They're both smokers so are often in the garden smoking at 11-12pm when Nando goes out for his night time wee and starts barking very loudly which isn't ideal. Currently I go and stand outside with him and then he doesn't bark at all.

Well it's not necessarily that easy, but with a dog like Nando I'd probably look at trying to teach him to bark on cue and then to be quiet on cue- you'd then have to start putting in distance control. This way if you hear him bark, you can eventually use the quiet command, even if you are not close, and ideally even if he cannot see you. It does not stop him doing what he instinctively wants to do, but does give him clear limits and purpose.

You might also consider working with your neighbours to get Nando more comfortable and familiar with their smell and presence at the garden boundaries, so that he does not feel the need to guard, warn off or alarm bark. However, that might be hard to do in terms of time and cooperation. Anyhow, with you out there as backup he may grow out of it, as he becomes more familiar with what are normal sounds and smells, as opposed to unusual ones. Your presence allows him to relax enough to learn this stuff, rather than going out into the night all guns blazing on his own.

He knows the quiet command and does obey. If not he has a brill recall so I use that instead.

Well you have two really great tools with which you can now train him at distance.

I also think if you can try to build positive associations around your neighbours that will help. Perhaps with you out there they could call him to the fence and give him a treat- let him get used to their voices and smell- including cigarette smell- around the fence. You could even look at them using the quiet command too- though they'd have to participate in some training with you. You can point out the positives of having a watch dog in that with enough training he should know what noises are familiar and what is new/unusual. As a youngster he is learning all this.

The problem is that they are diagonally adjoined to us, and there is a shed in the way. He can hear them but can't see them and not well enough for them to tell him 'quiet' anyway. It's not really a huge problem but just something I'd have liked to have been able to stop. I think it may be somehting that stops with age.