Barking advice

Wellyboots6

Asking for some advice please

Tyson has started barking in the garden. A lot.

He is a GSD and so his bark is pretty loud!

My back garden is up steps from the back door, so when I open the door he charges up the steps, stops at the top, does 2 barks and then goes off to do whatever it is he does (usually digging up plants, eating things he shouldn't, chase frogs etc)

The neighbours all said they were fine with his '2 barks' as our gardens are all connected by gates due to being a terrace and so it alerts them if he is outside and so they know to tell him they are coming through the gate.

Recently however some dogs down the street have started replying to the '2 barks' if they are outside. It then ends up a bit like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3eqofgfDpY

He has now started going outside and doing the '2 barks', listening and then if noone replies doing it again.

The neighbours haven't complained, yet, but I want to train him out of this as quickly as possible!

I have started calling him in as soon as it goes beyond the 2 barks, but as the garden is up steps I am worried about his legs doing this (his recall is improving however!)

Advice please!

(Krlyr I am looking in your direction... )

Raksha

Reward him for being quiet. Train him to respond to a 'quiet' command. Call him, ask him for a couple of sit/down/stand combos, then send him off to do his thing (thereby breaking his focus on barking)...

krlyr

Kiki dashes out to bark at any squirrels/pigeons at the neighbour's bird feeding stations but after hurting her leg I had to take her out on lead to prevent this (I let her off once we're out, it's just to break that initial dash). Just stopping that initial reaction helped stop the barking too. Might be worth stopping his 'door dashing' so this his initial high energy charge doesn't put him in that kind of guardy state of mind straight away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uibsAgV48Vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQLEdnztAFw
I'm just in the process of following these videos for my two actually, so I can ditch the lead.

If that doesn't stop the barking then teaching speak and quiet on command can often help

Wellyboots6

Good ideas, thanks

Just took him out to the garden and did a few commands with him whilst the dogs down the road were barking, and he ignored them

Stopping the 'door dashing' might also be a good idea anyway as when his legs start deteriorating much more he is going to have to be a lot more careful

Caroline_a

Oakley had a habit of charging out into the garden barking at some dangerous spec of dirt or something. I trained him to 'wait' while I opened the door and made him wait until I told him that he could go. That seemed to take the wind out of his sails and he went out a lot slower... without the barks!