Hi.

My pup has just turned six months and she is driving me mad.  I work from home and my office is upstairs.  Whenever I am up upstairs for any period of time, she barks - inside and outside (if she has access outside).  It's starting to drive me mad cos i have two other dogs who join in when she barks and all charge outside to see what she's barking at.........

I think this is some kind of attention seeking but how can I stop this.  she has lots of toys etc to keep her happy.

Hi, what breed is your pup?  what breed are your other dogs? 

From what you say so far, it sounds like the barking might be rewarded - because whenever she barks, the other dogs rush out to see what it's about.  This must be great fun for a little pup - bark and the rest of the pack comes to join in.  Is there some way, when you are upstairs, you can separate the pup from the other dogs? 

Also, when she barks, what do you do?  If you speak to her, shout at her to shut up or go to her, you are rewarding the barking.  The only thing is to ignore it.  If you want to go to her, wait for her to be quiet, then go to her.

I think that she will learn very fast, if when she barks no other dogs run to her, and you do nothing - barking gets her nothing that way.  But be warned that it might get worse before it gets better, because things like this often do.

She is a collie x retriever........ the others 1 x collie and 1 57 .

I could put her in her crate, but wouldn't really want to do that.

Ignore the link to the thread as this has now been removed due to the heated discussion over e-collars etc (I believe)

"I work from home and my office is upstairs.  Whenever I am up upstairs for any period of time, she barks - inside and outside (if she has access outside)"

Where is she kept during the day ?  Being a collie x retriever she is an active dog, working / gundog mix and as such easily bored.  The barking is her way of telling you she is bored and needs more and the fact that she is only six months of age I fear that the situation may get worse as she gets older.  I have a boxer and a springer x collie and have had springers most of my life so I can tell you from experience that any type of dog will get bored if not stimulated enough but even more so being the type of cross she is.

Try some simple commands - when you leave the room and she barks *don't* go back to her or you are rewarding the bark, simply say in a firm tone (not shouting or yelling, but even firm tone) 'stop' - when she stops reward her with a 'good stop' in a happy voice and lots of praise plus a food reward (if yo use food rewards) and a quick 'well done' playtime - this will take a while to sink in but you have to be consistent.  I know what a barking dog can do to your senses but just remember it is her only way of communicating to you that she needs more, she needs lots of training, mental stimulation and playtime too. 

HTH x

Ok, there is a thread going on at the moment that does have good advice in it :

http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?tid=77583#fnp

there is also a debate about e-collars on there but if you ignore those posts ;) and pick your way through you may be able to get some ideas on how to handle your situation :)

citronella spray collar would do the trick.

Citronella spray collar might stop the barking, but who knows what other behaviour would then surface? With other dogs in the household too, if one of them was to bark it would set the collar off too and negate the effect. Far better to find out WHY she is barking......