hi im desperately in need of some advice we have a 5 month old springer spaniel who right from the word go has barked alot  in the beginning she barked for most of the night this is now slowly getting better and she tends to go till about 4 am b4 the barking starts i still put paper down for her at night which she does use i keep getting told not to give in to her barking and come down to let her out as she will not learn to hold herself through the night!! we have 2 other dogs mongrels who are finding her constant barking a little distressing through the day its anytime from taking her walks out on the garden when shes being fed just about anytime if she wants to bark then she barks!!shes also a little aggresive towards the other 2 wont let them play with toys takes there treats of them  were hoping to take her training classes but recently she`s had major surgery so i have put the classes on hold for a while but im also concirned once there with her constant barking we may be asked no to attend  hope somebody can advise me and point me in the right direction!!!

One of mine was a bit barky as a pup, started at about 9 months :rolleyes:  The way we dealt with it was not to give in !!  Any barking meant that all fun would stop immediately :( and if it persisted then the dog was sent out of the room for a few minutes and only allowed back in if quiet.  This may be harder to do if the barking never stops, but there are ways of dealing with it.

Dinner - dogs have to sit by front porch door and wait untill called to dinner in kitchen (they love this as its fun!! ) this was the cue to bark, but the dog was not allowed to move until barking stopped and if barking started on the way got sent back to the beginning, each time taking longer to call him ;)  so if I waited 20 seconds the first time, it increased by 10 seconds every time he got sent back, first day he had to wait half an hour longer for his dinner!! ( the other one had eaten his ) he quickly cottoned on and now is mostly quiet when waiting for dinner.

When in the garden any barking means they have to come in (stupid human misunderstanding them :rolleyes: )

Any other barking I would treat by waiting for a pause and then giving attention.

eg. wanting to go out at night - I would go down and wait until the barking stiopped before going in to the pup and letting her out.
Wanting in from the garden, wait until barking paused before opening the door :)

If you can use a clicker (good ones come with instructions for training to the click/reward) then you should be able to stop the barking fairly quickly, every time there's a pause of a few seconds click and treat, once the dog has the idea you can increase the length of time that the pause lasts.  You may have to use a small noise distraction to get him to stop barking at first.

Remember though that all people in the household have to be consistent with what you're trying to do or it won't work!

Hope this helps a little, someone else will be along soon to offer more/different ideas which I haven't thought of.

thanxs dill im going to invest in a clicker today and c how we go from there  i think it could just be her goin through the puppy stage but i want to try and illiminate it now thanxs for ur advice

I agree with Dill's advice - it's very good and if you can work with your Springer in this way, you will find things improve (unless there is some medical reason for barking...what was the major operation for?)

If you send the dog out of the room, do it  calmly with no emotion or the understanding will be lost in chaos. I use a word, such as "ah!" to mark the wrong behaviour. It's meant as a communication, not a telling off :) Remember to praise and treat for calm behaviour, and if you see the dog struggling to obey and to control herself.

My dog has just had to cope with 3 extra cats next door (all with bells on their collars! :rolleyes:) and using the above method, we've stopped her barking (which used to be each time she heard a bell, so maybe every 30 minutes! at one stage). She understands she may "grump" because to me that's allowing a dog to be a dog, but she's not allowed to actually bark - once she barks, she goes out for just a few minutes. After say, 3 minutes she comes back in, and so on. YOu do have to be consistent though, and immediate - no use not doing it because you'r ein the middle of dinner ;)  The criteria I used was "if a human was in the room and you bark, you get put into the hall" so we didn't move her if we weren't with her. It's worked so well her general barking has calmed down too...she was starting to get more exciteable generally, all because of the cats...now she is back to a calmer dog around the house.

We also use the clicker, I couldn't be without it now.

Re the barking in the night, I wonder if that's part of the problem...it may help to break the habit if she either sleeps with you for a bit and gets transferred to downstairs, or else if someone is down with her..or, if you can find out if she's being awoken or set off by something. I wouldn't jsut let her bark as it may actually be signifying some stress on her part if she keeps on and on.

Lindsay
X

the operation kalya had was to remove part ov her intestine and bowel,  symptoms were very bad `poo`s` and cudnt keep food down at all `intussusception` was the term the vet used. we have the 2 other dogs which are very calm do anything for a quiet life kinda dogs they are not pedigree but with kayla`s constent barking they get easily stressed
before she had the operation we had nearly sorted the toileting but with her being in and out of the vets for the last 5 weeks we are kinda back to stage 1 again with her the barking is mainly at night and i do come down thinking she wants the toilet but 9 times out of 10 she`s already done it in home she`s more or less over the op now the vet says she`s doing well  so i kinda want to sort things out and start training her im not new to the breed as we always had springers when i was with my parents but kayla is the first one ive owned myself im finding it hard but i wont give up she`s a gem really im just gratefull for any advice i can get   many thanxs  michelle

misselly,

It would be good to find out if you can exactly how much and which bits of the bowel and intestine has been removed, and whether or not the ILEOCAECAL VALVE is still present.  This will have a direct effect on how long it will take for the bowel to recover and whether or not there will be digestive problems which will need to be addressed regarding continence (eg. there may be temporary/permanent intolerance of some foods.  This should be easier to address than in humans as a dog's diet doesn't need to have loads of variety to be balanced :) but it will give you a way of easing toilet training, after all if the need is very urgent then continence can be difficult.  I do have experience in this field so if you can find out the extent of surgery then I can help you define whether or not problems are likely and how to improve things :D

she`s back at vets on monday to have stitches out so it is still early days really i will definately ask the vet the things u have mentioned and will let u no monday night once again many thanx   michelle

It may also help to invest in a DAP diffuser - these are plugged in and stay plugged in all the time. It may help her to settle at night..

Lindsay
x