My mum and stepdad moved into a ground floor flat a few weeks ago with their two dogs.
One of the dogs is fine, no problems but the other one is unfortunately going senile.
He is completely deaf and is losing his marbles, poor old thing.
The problem is his barking. He is starting to bark at his own shadow and anything and everything that moves. If he sees something or even senses something he will start barking and doesn't stop for ages.
If someone is with him they can tap him on the shoulder and he stops but while no one is there, he never shuts up.
The person on the first floor is understandably a little peed off with this and has threatenend to report my mum.
It is a council flat so no secure tenancy for 12 months.
A couple of friends up the road said he was barking for 2 hours yesterday.
They just don't know what to do.
Can anyone help please? We don't want to have to have him put to sleep but can't see any other option at the moment :(

there is a thing abit like a muzzle called a husher, that is made of strong elastic that may help, ive never used one but have seen them at shows, i dont know where you could get one,but im sure someone on here will know,or you could do a search of mailorder doggy stuff?

It is not recommended that a husher is used without supervision......................................................

do you know why??

I would imagine because an unsupervised dog could do itself quite a lot of damamge if it panicked and tried to remove it........

i suppose,but like anything else it would be introduced properally! my dogs have collars on all the time which some people think is dangerous????

It could prove problematic, like a muzzle, if the dog wanted to vomit...........................

yes i suppose so!
oh well just a idea!!!!

How would the dog have a drink?

The dogs can actually drink in a husher and in a baskerville muzzle however I would never leave a dog alone in either as the potential for choking etc is far too riskly IMHO.

Try this website it has quite a good selection of gizmo's to stop your Mums dog barking

www.pet-express.co.uk/docs/productlisting/walkies.htm

You'll need to copy and paste the address-sorry

Good luck

A

If he has only started to bark alot in old age ,it my help if you see a vet, there is medication that can helpwith dementia.

Couldn't one of the friends who lives up the road and heard him barking for two hours, have a key and go in and interupt him?  Or maybe look after him when Mum and Dad go out. 
Does he have a nice comfy bed?  My oldies sleep a lot after they've had a good walk if they have somewhere warm and cosy to curl up.
It isn't very fair to use a husher or anti-bark collar on an old deaf dog.
Sally

Interuption could be interpreted by the dog as reward, if he's barking through missing his humans.......

If he's old, deaf and senile then I wouldn't have a problem rewarding him for anything if he was mine. ;)

I agree Sally.

perhaps there could be a way of not leaving him for any length of time? or perhaps if he was left in a covered large crate he may be encoraged to sleep abit more & feel more secure?

I agree Sally - but somebody's got to play devil's advocate ;)

I'm going to REALLY play devils advocate now..

If the dog is genuinely going senile and there is no obvious treatable medical condition then I'd be looking at giving the dog some dignity and putting to sleep.

Two hours barking (if this is new) indicates a dog in distress / confusion. These people have their home potentially at risk and rehoming at that age would be unfair. If the dog has not had this habit in the past then something (either real or imagined) is distressing the dog. Tough decision, i know, but I really dont like to see sick dogs kept going when the quality of life is gone.

Just my opinion tho!

Interesting thought, I think it would depend on how often he was likely to be left under those sort of circumstances though, and if other methods didn't work..........