Hi all.

We have two wheaten terriers - a girl who's nearly three and a boy who's just turned one. Both dogs are really friendly and well socialised with dogs and people, but there is one issue we're struggling to manage.

Essentially, if anything happens to stimulate one of them - and this could be something as minor as a bird flying across the garden and catching their attention - then that dogs excitement level rockets and they start running around and barking. That then starts the other one off, even though the second dog has no idea what it's barking at. Once they're both going they just feed each others excitement level. This lasts for about a minute and then they chill out and get back to snoozing or sniffing grass.

When we just had the girl, there was the same issue, but it was manageable as it was fairly easy to intervene and distract her. Also, she never ever barked, and just ran around and jumped up (which is still bad). However, now there are two of them, the problem is that much worse, and he has (kind of) taught her to bark (she still doesn't really know how and hers is more of a gurgly moan, but still loud).

We're now moving from Surrey to Devon and are hoping to be able to live the good life, with chickens and geese and sheep, so it's really important that we get this under control.

Both dogs have completed a couple of training courses and we will be heading back before moving west, but I wondered if anyone could help with tips to help manage the dogs excitement levels. We really can't let them get that excited every time we see a chicken or we'll be run out of the county.

Cheers

my youngest dog barked at everything when we first got her at a few months older than you usually get a pup and it took a lot of time and patience to stop this. i always had to be in the garden and with a pocket full of treats would distract as soon as i noticed her getting too excited or heard a noise i knew would set her off. it was a case of catch it before it got out of control. i would call her and show her the treat, make her sit which helped distract and calm her down then give her the treat and continue till the nose had stopped etc eventually she got used to most the noises and people walking by and now only barks when something unusual happens. if distraction didn't work then she would be put in the kitchen and left their to calm down on her own while i stayed outside with the other dogs. after five minutes i'd let her back out distracting her with a toy so she didn't charge out already excited again and she would only remain outside if she was quiet.
all this takes a lot of work but worth every minute for a quiet dog. i have the dog from hell living next door to me and it drives my family mad barking, so there's no way i'm letting my dogs bark and disturb other people.
sorry don't know about with the chickens as when i had them once my dogs never barked at them anyway but i think most dogs will find that rather exciting. the ' leave it' command will come in handy though if they can't take their eyes of them.