Need help with barking outside ~ before I loose my mind!!

[Denise & Hunter!!!]

Hunter is a very quiet doodle in the house, very rarely does she make a peep.  Doesn't bark when someone knocks on the door (quite the guard dog!), if she see's a squirrel outside or a cat she will but that is it.  She will go days without barking at all in the house.

Then I have to let her outside and that's where the problem begins.  

She barks her you know what off!!  She's not out 3 minutes and she is barking like a fool.  She likes to stand in the front yard and look down the road and across the street at honestly nothing and bark and bark and bark.  I am sure my neighbors are swearing at her.  The front yard is her favorite barking area. She will bark in the back yard to but I don't have any neighbors behind me and our yard is fairly deep so its not as bad.  The front yard barking is ready to drive me nuts.  I have tried bringing her in every single time she barked and all I got out of it were sore leg muscles from going up and down the steps 900 times a day.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? Before my neighbors lynch me :-)

[Elizabeth, Bailey & Bruin]

I have used a coke can with pennies to break several habits of Bailey's.  I would bring the can outside with you, when she starts to bark, shake it and yell quiet.  After a few times she should associate the stern word quiet with the noise of the can and hopefully stop barking......

 

Good luck!!  And keep us updated

 

[Ginny Nightingale]

I think a bit of barking is OK too--it is their way of saying Hi to everyone in the neighborhood, but when it goes on and on, I get nervous about the neighbors too. I bought the bark collar from Innotek--I got it on the Petedge website. It works--and does not hurt as others have said. We used it on Lyric and she got much better--now we have it off of her because her son is wearing it (the nut doesn't fall far from the tree!) so she is starting to bark again--i guess I will have to buy another one!

[Diane and Alma]

We use a citronella based bark collar with Alma.  I borrowed a friend's e-collar but when it shocked me I decided never to use it on Alma.  She likes to bark at the neighbor dog (who never barks).  As soon as Alma hears his dog tags it sends her into a frenzy.  We used to short leash her to an outside patio chair to calm her down but we find that the collar is easier.  She is super smart and realized that as soon as she came inside the collar would come off.  Then after a minute she would be back outside barking (she has a dog door).  So now I leave the collar on her for 10 minutes or so.  I also make sure that I never call her to "come" when I put it on her.  I think she would associate come with being punished. 

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

D, I had that problem with my Jack when he was younger and we did the collar which worked great. The problem was these doodles are too smart for their own good and after awhile he knew when it was off and when it was on. I couldn't keep it on him all the time and when it was off he'd have his barking fits. Then would run like it was a game when I would go to put it back on. After leaving it on for awhile he finally got the message and now all I have to do is pick it up and he stops.

 

The rest of my pack will all get their bark on when my husband or boys come home. That many doggies barking was driving me crazy. My solution? A water gun and now they all stop as soon as I say, "Where's My gun?" Let me know what you decide and how it goes. 

[Heather Martinez]

I've mentioned before that I've used a soft muzzle on Teddy to prevent attention barking. Oddly, Teddy almost never barks outside, but he used to bark for attention in the house. When he barked I said "QUIET" I gave him two chances and then he had to wear the muzzle for a couple of minutes. Now he understands the command QUIET, so if he does bark outside it is only once (usually trying to get another dog to play) and I say QUIET and he stops immediately. It took a couple of weeks to stop the barking using this method.