Vacation Manners

[Carol and Banjo]

Just home from a couple of days at Lake George. Banjo had a wonderful time and was a pleasure to travel with.   The only problem we ran into was during the night back in our motel room.   We brought along Banjo's crate and had it right next to our  bed.   He was great until someone passed outside our room or made any kind of noise in the adjoining rooms.  The first time he heard something he started growling and then proceeded to bark (loudly)!!!   I quickly scolded him and he did stop, but for the rest of the night he'd do the growling thing at each noise....then me sternly telling him "no". 
He is a perfect little "watch dog" at home  whenever a car pulls in or someone comes to the door, but quickly settles when we open the door.   I've never had to correct him at home so I'm not sure how to correct him when we're not at home.
We plan to travel often with him and I'd like to be able to have him with us and be ok with outside noises - not feeling like he has to "alert" us.   Does anyone have ideas on the best way to handle this sort of behavior?    We also are looking forward to doing some camping with him.....this really might be a challenge!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Carol, we just went through the same thing with our two Doods on vacation. They were in a strange place with very different sounds, and they felt uneasy so they went into guarding/barking mode (especially the first week). I really just did my best to reassure them that everything was fine, and that seemed to help. We tried using "Shhhh" as our vocal reminder and put our finger up to our lips for their verbal cue. When they stopped barking, they got a treat. By the end of the first week they had settled down a lot, and if they did bark it was only a couple quick ones. With Murph I also find that if he's barking at the door, I get right in his space between him and the door and do the "shhh"...he stops right away. I really believe as my guys get older and gain confidence, along with our reminders and reassurance, they will grow out of it. I hope I'm right.

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

My girls do this at home and we are in constant training mode! I can usually get them to stop, but I have yet to get them not to start! We have spent one night in a hotel and until everyone got in their rooms for the evening and stopped walking up and down the hallway talking it was bark bark bark. It finally stopped though around 11:00. We are going again this week-end for a couple nights and I have requested a room at the far end of the hallway so hopefully that will help! We shall see.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Whenever I have thought about taking the dogs to a hotel I wondered how they would do with noises outside the room. I'm sure they would bark also. So I am very interested in any solutions.

[Carol and Banjo]

I have a feeling if we'd spent more time he'd have had a chance to adjust to the outside noises as well. Webber seems to have done that even with the changes in actual locations....GOOD for him!!!! Linda, how did you find your accomodations in general...being that you were staying in "dog friendly" places. We had never stayed in this place before, it was not by any means inexpensive but it was (for lack of a better word) disgusting. We were so "put off" by the room we were in that on returning home we headed right down to an RV dealer to begin shopping for our own "place". Maybe this was not the norm as far as "pet friendly".....we just never want to find ourselves in that situation again.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I use a fan in our bedroom that seems to help mute sounds. I noticed they bark more when I do not use the fan. I thought if we ever stayed in a hotel with them, I would bring along the fan. Just a thought.

[F, Calla & Luca]

A noisy fan might be really good. This weekend a friend came with her Jack Russell. He kept us up most of the first night. My dogs were kept in the bedroom, they usually have free run of most of the house. Whenever they heard my friend or the dog they started barking.The second and third night I kept the noisy whole house fan on which helped a lot.

[Marcy, Girls and Ruby]

I've been to hotels a few times with Ruby. It was only the last time that she barked at people in the hallway. I was tired and wanted to sleep and not worry so I just turned the tv on fairly low volume but was enough background noise to drown out hallway noise for her. I know, not the most eco-friendly solution....sorry.