Hi
I'm new to this forum, I have 4 dogs, a male and female Yorkie age 12 & 9 years a male Scottie age 2 years and the newest one is Jack a male Westie now 6 months old.  I looked after Jack when he was 9 weeks old as the owner was struggling and then she did not want him back so I've got him.  My question is concerning jacks fear barking at other dogs, I've never had this with any of my other dogs so I decided to go to puppy training classes last week for an eight week course.  The barking was bad and every one was looking at me.  The trainers could not get him to shut up so I was taken out of the room.  (There was definitely a lack of humour in the class).  Now I don't want to go back, my stomach is in knots at the thought of it.  I will be going before my nightshift and I know I wont sleep that day because of it.  Do you think that structured classes are the only way ahead for this type of behaviour or do you have ideas that I can use myself?  He's doing great in other ways with the training.

Hi
I assume when you had to leave the room Jack calmed down and you were allowed back in.  When I first started training classes I went to watch beforehand and a member of staff said to me at first you might be out more than in until the dog realises he is not meant to be making so much noise.
She also said - which I found very reassuring - please do not be embarrassed because you are being sent out after all that is why you are coming to the class to learn how to stop this behaviour.

i went to semiar yesterday on behaviour this subject came.

you need write down dose he do the barking when he see other dogs or other things.
what do you do when he barks.do you tell him off.give him food to shut him up there lot of thing to think about not just why he barking.
it could have been something happen to him while he was with the breeder and that why she give him up.
if it dogs then you got to interdue 10 nice dogs to him. method that i saw yesterday with a dog that did the same to it write it down to long but with in 20 to 30 min the dog that we saw let a dog near him with a foot without barking

Hi
I'll give you a bit of insight into Jack.  The friend I got Jack from has eight children and they had hyped him to the max and he ended up an absolute nightmare, that is why I was asked to look after him for a couple of weeks.  He had no manners at all when I got him.  He used to hang from my dogs faces, do a high pitched scream if you attempted to leave the room.  I crate tranined all the others and could not do it with him because he just screamed if he was put in it and did not get any better.  I work constant nights and would sit and cry when I had a couple of hours sleep as he hardly slept, even when I was at work my daughter was up half the night with him.  I ended up bringing him into my bedroom and he got better. He now sleeps alot down the stairs and can be left for short periods but still tends to follow me every where around the house.  His worst barking is with other dogs it's frantic barking and I would definately say that it is comming from fear it used to occur when a dog was a dot on the horizon but now it happens when they are about up to 6 metres away from us.  He also barked frantically at young kids as he got very anxious when he saw or heard them,  but that has reduced alot basically because none come to my house and I basically keep him away from them.  He is also an huge attention seeker and can bark at people sometimes for a pet.  However the dog barking is the worst.  I used to ignore the barking and kept walking, now I try to get his attention with a treat, that can work a bit.  Barking in my house is not a problem now at all, this could be due to him being his most relaxed there.  Basically he's a nervous exciteable dog.

Hi
When i left the room he did not calm down as he could smell the other dogs.  We did not get back in and I was encouraged to leave before the others but I could see the sense in it as there is no point in rushing.  I  could always enroll for another couple of eight week courses.  I totally agree with you that I should not get embarrassed and that is why i am there, that is the advice i would give others but I'm struggling with it myself.

When I took my two to their classes our trainer had a good technique for barky dogs. She got the owner to turn the dogs face to the owners body/face. When the dog lost eye contact with the other dogs the barking tended to stop. The dogs quickly learned to stop barking if they wanted to look around :)

We have a JR that has just started to come to our class.  She has two JR's and she came with the timid one and said she couldn't bring the other as it was so aggressive.  When she brought the 'aggressive' one it was very obvious that it was fearful and was making the timid one more fearful than it should have been.  I was working with 'aggressive' one all last week and what we did was make the owner make the dog concentrate on her every time a dog came near. When the dog stopped barking on the owners command the dog got a treat and by the end of the class it was certainly better than at the beginning. It worked just like the previous poster said but you have to ensure that the dog keeps concentrating on you and not the other dogs. In the meantime the timid one wasn't as timid when the other dog was kept under control.  Hopefully this will be 'killing two birds with one stone'

Thankyou for the responses, they are sensible and I will definately make full use of this technique.  I will let you know how I get on with this at the training class on wednesday night and on our walks.