We adopted our little terrier/chihuahua mix over a year ago now, and she has proven to be very challenging. Our best guess is someone got her as a purse dog and didn’t spend a lick of time training her… As a result in her year long life, we were at least her third home.
She has one habit we can’t figure out how to break. She goes ultra sonic with the pitch of her yipping when I get home from work/ someone is at the door/ the door bell is rung. She starts out barking, but then the pitch gets higher and higher. It isn’t that we want her to stop barking, but that high pitch yipping really, really hurts our ears and must stop… Suggestions? Citronella collar? Vibration collar? Other?
I’m sure this is absolutely the opposite of correct training but my dog basically screams this crazy high pitched nonsense when I get home or if people she loves visit or she visits them (her grandmom and dad aka my parents are the worst) Anyways she is very well trained in any other aspect of her life, off leash walks, agility, passed her CGC at 8 months etc etc. For her it is anxiety related when I get home…the frequency of the screams is worse when it’s outside her normal schedule or longer than she’s used too etc.
Nothing I did in terms of positive training with treats, neg training with any type of correction made a dent. My solution is I pick her up…she stops screaming, either says hi to me because I’m holding her or I hold her while she says hi to whoever she’s crazy excited about. Once she’s good and calm I put her down encourage her to get a toy/bone and play/chew on that for further distraction. I know it’s a positive reward for the screaming but she only does it when she truly loses her normal ability to think and maintain her training. For her I know it’s stress related and she’s had a few bad injuries resulting in crate rest which made it worse so I humor her because if she’s really that daggone excited to see me she loses her brain and screams I don’t mind holding her for a few min to reassure her.
Lots of smaller terriers and chihuahuas can go into that high pitched noise (one reason I know they just aren’t the breed for me - it would drive me insane). You can’t train her vocal abilities out of her, but you can try to look into the cause behind the shrill barks. I’m wondering if she has some separation anxiety, which would not be uncommon, which is why she gets so excited when her person comes home. If she enjoys toys greet her and give her a stuffy or throw a ball to engage/acknowledge her and also distract her from barking. Does she usually calm down after a few minutes? My moms dogs are shrill barkers and they will wail to high heavens the moment they here her garage door go up and until she opens up their baby gate (they hang out in the laundry/mud room during the day) to greet them.
When someone is at your door or walking by it is likely your dog just wants to make sure that you know OR that she is very anxious about someone else coming near her home. Honestly, most dogs are going to bark if some random person walks by the front door or a bell is rung. Mine do (deep large dog barks), but they have also been trained to stop barking when I acknowledge that I know someone is there. It can take time to get to a point where you can give a command and they’ll respond. Don’t punish for the barking, it is a natural response. After the initial bark just train a word like “name, calm” or “name, enough” or whatever else you want to say. Just be consistent and use a calm neutral voice, not a punishing voice. Again, you could also try to distract here if she likes toys.
You could also try clicker training. But I’d definitely start with training before adding collar gadgets. Maybe look into one of those anti bark machines… I’ve never tried one, but maybe others here can give thoughts on if they are worth it. What have you tried with her thus far to help with the barking?
Bark collars are not inhumane. And they are training; they train the dog not to bark…immediately, because they work using the vibrations the dog makes rather than waiting for you to hear and respond. I would get a quality product that is recommended for tiny dogs; this would not be an item to buy used or a bargain item.
I would never use a citronella collar. The citronella oil stays in the air/on the dog even after they have stopped barking - which is not how operant conditioning is supposed to work.
I don’t know if it will work in your scenario, but I have found that by teaching a dog to bark on command, I can control it. I’ve done this with a few different breeds and it works for my current JRT. He can get excited and let a bark slip or there, so when that happens, I redirect to another task he’s good at. Once he does that task and is not barking on his own, I will have him speak on command a few times, then go back to a different task. This usually works and he will go for quite a while before I have to do it again. It’s so unusual now to hear him bark, that it tends to catch me off guard.
I also do not let anyone try to make him bark. Idk if you have people like that around, but some members of my family will try to get him to bark and I have to tell not to do that.
stargzng386 thank you for sharing your experience with your dog! When we have guests over, I have resorted to picking her up until she regains her composure, then I put her down. She is then excited and happy to meet the guests but isn’t out of her mind excited/worried/anxious. Like you say, I am rewarding the behavior… but on the other hand she is able to calm down so I do not know what to do.
One of the problems is when I get home. There is someone home almost all the time, but I am this little dog’s person (she is great with the rest of the family, she has just bonded with me more for whatever reason) so it takes time to get my stuff and get in the door to make the horrible noises stop.
The other problem is deliveries. By the time I have gotten my hands on her to pick her up, she has gone from a sharp attention bark to ultra sonic yipping!
Had I known this, we probably would have avoided theses breeds!!! But we are where we are now, and I need to work towards a solution!
Wow… you are good! Yes, she has some separation anxiety undoubtedly made worse by all the turmoil in her short little life. She likes toys OK, but she likes people more if that makes sense. Toys are just a mechanism for people to pay attention to her. My husband is home with her during the day so she is alone hardly ever.
Yes, she calms down after a few minutes. To me, it seems like she works herself into a frenzy. She starts excited then spirals out of control in a matter of seconds; if I can figure out how to stop the spiral then we can make some progress.
What steps did you take to teach them to stop barking on command? Me learning how to do this would benefit all our dogs!
My horse is clicker trained… lol! I need to investigate how to do that with a dog though. Oh, the usual, yelling, spraying with water, etc which as we all know doesn’t work! My problem is I have lots of experience training horses and get regular lessons, but dogs not so much. I am leery of looking for a dog trainer, because as I know with horse trainers, there isn’t certification and any one can be a ‘dog trainer.’ And even if someone has a certification, that doesn’t mean they know how to deal with more complicated problems like anxiety. I would love to find a good trainer like I have with horses, but I haven’t had the time to vet any ones near me. The issues we are having are well above Petco/Petsmart level of experience!
@S1969 thanks! I wanted to investigate all options before jumping to the spray collars.
@RacetrackReject that is a good suggestion, thanks! I will be looking into training methods for doing that.
Keep in mind she may have been punished for the noises she makes, which has made her more hysterical/more excited/more in a hurry to please her chosen person. I have experienced this phenomenon with my terrier when he was younger, had some inappropriate behavior which was some weird puppyish/submissive behavior which was heightened to hysteria when/if any negative reinforcement techniques were used in attempt to correct them.
So just keep in mind that her vocalizations may be so linked to her anxiety that the only way to lessen them is to praise/reward/build up her confidence level–which seems odd and counterproductive but she’s a terrier and they are a enigma especially if you have little/no terrier experience. I love terriers, they are my type. They are quirky and super fun but people tell me they are different then other breeds and not for everyone. Anyway, food for thought because it sounds for all the world to me like puppyish/anxiety/submissive/please the boss behavior and if your response is in the slightest bit negative, she will only go into overdrive with it in a desperate attempt to win your favor. She may “know” no other way.
They have very good recall commands so that is the first step for how my dogs have all worked. I have one who is toy motivated and one who is food/attention motivated. If they started barking at, for instance, a guy delivering a package at the door I’d recall them and they’d come to me and if they kept barking once they got to me I’d say “Zeus, enough” in a calm tone (not angry or yelling, just like how I’d say any other command). Immediately upon ceasing the barking they would get their treat/toy/or a scratch and face rub and a “good boy/girl”. Eventually they learned to associate “enough” and stopping barking - it takes time to get to that point though. I also have to admit that mine have been pretty easy to do obedience training with because I’ve consistently done it throughout their lives and all of them were adopted at 6mo or less so I got to make that imprint on them.
I’ve never done the clicker training, but others have had good luck with it and it is definitely something I’d look into if I needed it should I happen to get another dog.
That is very interesting! It sure does seem to fit with what I am seeing and most definitely food for thought…
They sure are! Our oldest dog is an APBT, and he sure has schooled us over the last decade! He is the complete opposite of this dog though: sure of himself, dominant and stubborn! Oh I still fondly remember shortly after we adopted him as 1 year old, I told him to “Come here,” he looked and me then continued to do what he was doing. Oh, I walked after him for a good 15 minutes until I finally caught him… He tried that only once again, gave up after 5 minutes. I will follow through my friend… I will.
Thank you for replying. She is the polar opposite of him for sure.
In defense of the smaller terriers, I have Borders and one isn’t a big barker at all. The other barks when excited (and such a lovely combination in a home with tile floors, the barker barking and the non-barker howling at the barker :rolleyes:)
As soon as you can, redirect attention and focus from barking to something else… treats, toys, etc. My barker is much better when he gets his Nylabone and chews it.
I, in general, don’t actually use a ‘clicker’ per se but I do have a mark word that gets used for ‘reward’ without too much spinning him up. I use it when I want to praise/reward; on walks when he’ll focus on me, face a distraction and focus on me for example; all will get the mark word. As well, a correct alert during nosework also gets the mark word.
Sure, I wouldn’t just slap a collar on them, light them up, and call it “good enough” forever.
Obviously if there are triggers to the behavior, that is something to address. But a lot of dogs are considered “nuisance barkers” - they bark for no reason (or not a very good reason) and it’s very difficult to limit the behavior without potentially causing a new behavior. (E.g. if you give attention which stops barking, do you train them to bark at you anytime they want attention?)
I use an e-collar in the field with my dogs. It’s a tool that gets used along with voice commands, directional commands, and lots of praise. A bark collar can be used as one of the tools. Maybe only for a week or two until the behavior changes, then something else…or, possibly as a last resort.
That is a good point! All the dogs we have adopted so far have been 1+ years old and honestly I don’t see that changing… The teenage years is when a lot of people dump their high eneryg dogs, sadly. So I guess we like a challenge?!?
@S1969 thank you for the additional discussion! I may have to resort to some type of collar for when we all leave and she is crated. She goes hyper sonic when we get home… Obviously no one is there to re-direct so something long distance may be required. However, this is the least of my worries at this point and will be one of the last things I work on. Hopefully if we can teach her to keep from losing her little marbles with me getting home/guests/deliveries that will translate to her crate.
@Where’sMyWhite and @Irish Ei’s thanks for weighing in!
I am thinking something along the lines of a few minutes before I get home, call my husband, and either have him pick up the little dog or put a leash on her collar. Then have him pet her, give her treats, pet her some more, and after I finally get in the house let her go. We have to break this cycle somehow in a positive way.
Then I like the idea of working on ‘enough’ as a command. Maybe something like clicker training with that command would work… I say ‘enough’ and a treat appears. If we can get her to do an alert bark then ‘enough’ she stops in a controlled situation where one of us is at the door knocking, hopefully when there are random deliveries this will translate. Thanks all!
If I didn’t have a cat to think about I would definitely adopt older. I’ve had issues in the past with older fosters and the cat not being able to get along… but the younger ones have always been happy for another furry creature to be around. Teen and older dogs do have their challenges, but puppies do too! Just depends on what type of challenge you want to try tackling
I think your ideas on how to work through the barking sound like good ones. Keep us updated on progress!
I was just going to suggest texting your husband, having him pick her up and then you can come in and say hi. I text my bf and he holds her by the door. Instead of the anxiety of holy shit you’re home scream my head off she knows I’m coming home, gets excited wags her tail. I say hi to her immediately when I come in and then he can set her down she goes and gets a toy and all is calm. We had to start this when she herniated a disc in her back to prevent any jumping and we’re continuing it because it just seems to keep her happier.
So true! They all do have their own challenges don’t they? I guess we are better equipped to take on dogs 1+ years old. I will let you know how it goes! As you know, anxiety problems are not going to be solved overnight… I will be happy if we can make some progress in a couple weeks!
My husband says I am attracted to animals with anxiety problems and likewise they are attracted to me… Our great dane came with pretty bad anxiety problems too, and he is really attached to me like this little dog. My horse is prone to anxiety and the other horses I work started out with really bad anxiety, although everyone is improving… maybe therapy is in order for me?!? As in, why do I do this to myself?
@stargzng386 I am glad to hear that has worked for you! Hopefully something like that will work for our little dog.
Sounds like you have a good plan (husband + treats.)
in addition, you could train an incompatible behavior such as picking up a toy, chewing on a kong or tugging.
Doggie valium. Seriously. If the barking is out-of-control anxiety-based, she needs help, not just discipline/training. If you can get her calm maybe you can train out the barking, but if she’s so out of control, she needs to get to a condition where she can focus on you and on paying attention to you.
Ask your vet what he recommends. The poor little dog may truly be happy and excited to see you, but OTOH may be just way too overly stressed, and that is not healthy. Her blood pressure has got to be spiking during all this, may be OK while she’s young but not so OK when she’s older.
