Hamish (the Cairn), is normally a friendly, gutsy little dog. You can get near him no problem when he is chewing a bone or eating his food. In fact he will bring his bones to us to hold whilst he is chewing them! But yesterday he was searching for something in the log shed and when my husband tried to get him out, as he wanted to close up the shed, Hamish turned on my husband snarling and snapping in a way that is very unlike him. I guess he must have been on the scent of a mouse or rat maybe but it came as quite a shock. Has anyone got any thoughts on this?
Oh and one other thing 'H' now barks for Scotland at EVERY passing car, person, horse anything in fact that 'DARES' to pass our house. It's driving us nuts! (He is rarely left alone) Are there any natural ways anyone knows of  to lessen this? I know of most of the anti barking products and if we can't solve this problem naturally we will probably resort to them.
Thanks for your help.
A

If he was hunting then it is more than possible that he objected to someone else joining in the fray or threatening to prevent the kill; hunting is a very competitive sport and you have a terrier that was originally bred to exterminate vermin; it is in his nature.  I would not be overly concerned myself.

As for barking, try shaping the absence of barking rather than punishing him for doing so.

Eg all the time he is quiet give him treats, when he goes into barking hysteria, desensitise him and counter condition him by only rewarding him when he is quiet and eventually in the presence or hearing of the stimuli.  It will take time, but it does work if you do it consistently and long enough and resist the temptation to shout :D

One tip I got off of this forum (my apologies, but I cannot remember which thread it was on) was to pretend that you have misinterpreted their bark. My lab got into a habit of barking at her bowl- to stop this, whenever she barked at it, I went and trimmed one of her claws which she doesn't particularly enjoy. After only a few times of doing this, it stopped completely as she associated barking at her bowl with having her nails cut! It didn't stop her barking at other things (which I don't mind at all as it's very rare and usually at something moving around in the garden when it's dark) but it might be worth giving it a go.

Hi, doesnt that make cutting your dogs nails even worse? I mean, now when you NEED to cut its nails wont it think it has done something bad?? Sorry for sounding dumb.

No I think the idea of the previous thread was just to use the cutting of the claws as a misinterpretation not as a punishment.
I don't think my dogs claws would last 5 mins if I used that idea to solve the problem.
Keep the ideas coming folks anyway, thanks

Tohme,
My dog has too short a memory for your desensitising theory I'm afraid, thanks anyway.
A

I found with my terrier, the instant the barking starts, call him inside ;) and shut the door (another misinterpretation 'you want to come in') wait a while before letting him in the garden again - and only if he isn't barking.  As terriers are soo nosy and love to be outside its a good deterrant.  They soon learn that if they want to stay in the garden then they have to be quiet :D

I used to find with my mothers Cairn that she always barked when going out into the garden, then was quiet.  I think this was to scare anything bigger than her away before they found out how small she was :D

Hope this helps
Dill

Thanks Dill,
I'm trying this already. It might take a long time for it to work but I'll keep trying. You are right about Cairns being nosey. I'll put him inside for barking and he'll be sat by the kitchen door which is fully glazed and all you can see from the outside are his little ears and beady black eyes, sat as close to the door as he can looking out. He doesn't want to miss a thing you see. He wants to be up on the telegraph wires with the birds, fluttering around with the Butterflies, eating the grass with the ponies and sheep at the bottom of the garden, chasing the odd car going by and running with the horses going by, ALL at the same time. There's so much to do you see.......................
A