Help!! with Barking

TeamGrady · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:26 am

Does anyone know how to control barking while the dog is in the kennel at events. As most know Grady barked constantly while crated at the Expo and also this weekend at the seminar for 4 hour straight. I eventually had to take him out to the Jeep before he would settle down. We kennel him at home when we are away and he seem to not have a problem with that, but at events thats another story. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

jgrenell · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:36 am

I have the same issues with Nova. Wazee used to bark at events but eventually just stopped on his own. Nova has yet to do this.

The Key I think is to train a default crate behavior, such as laying down in the crate. Makes it hard to bark and is a relaxed position for the dog.

I would also start by covering the crate completely. This will take some of the anxiety away.

Grady probably had no idea what was going on at the expo. Strange people all around, lots of dogs, oh and occationally She got to go out and do her favorite thing... A lot going on.

The Book. "Control Unleashed" is a must read. http://www.dogwise.com/itemdetails.cfm?ID=DTB943

Practice rewarding her in the crate when she is laying down. Eventually she should offer this behavior to get rewarded. Unfortunately she is also on a diet... So this food should come out of her daily rations. You could feed her whole meal this way. She lays down in the crate she gets a couple pieces of food.

I would start with that. It is not an easy fix. Takes time, and a lot of discdoggers don't care if there dogs bark the whole event. It is however very stressful on the dog, and you would think tiresome as well. Wazee used to totally exhaust himself before he even got to compete. Not good.

Good luck. I would get the book and start trying to get a default lay down in the crate.

jg

Anne · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:57 am

What jg says.

I teach a "zen" command which is conditioned relaxation. (Perception modification). You essentially teach the dog to lie down, touch its chin to the floor and RELAX on cue. Start his out of the kennel, build up to the performance/expo environment, then add the kennel back into it.

Ask for very short, variable durations. Gradually increase duration. THEN increase distance. Don't attempt to increase both at the same time!

I've done this with Emma, but I haven't crated her at events. She hangs out with me usually (on a "zen" command). I'm going to an Expo this week and will have to crate her periodically to let her little dog-brain rest. I'll report back on if it worked!

TeamGrady · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:59 am

I'll give the lay down reward a try and check out the book. I did notice he was more tired than usual at the seminar Sunday for what little we did with the dogs.

Thanks,
Paul

breesmom · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:01 am

A very good DVD is Susan Garrett's "Crate Games". It sure has helped Lumos. It gives the dog a sense of control over their space.
Chris

TeamGrady · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:04 am

Thanks Anne! I tried taking him out of his kennel and it worked at the Expo, but this weekend at the seminar it didn't seem to help he just kept barking. I'll try the lay with the head on the floor and see how that goes, knowing Grady he'll learn to bark with his chin on the floor.

Paul

Rocketdog · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:48 am

Paul, you can check "Control Unleashed" out at TCOTC's library if you don't want to buy it. And I've heard the same thing said about "Crate Games" that Chris mentioned. That's on my birthday wish list (which is BTW, this month..)

SheltieScirocco · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:50 am

As a pup, Zoey tended to be kind of barky in her crate when out-and-about. (I'd bring her along when I did training with Zac, specifically so she could get used to being crated when exciting things were happening.) I did the stuffed Kong (dinner) or other chew toy thing, covered the crate, and when she was quiet, ran over and stuffed a treat in her crate. She's fine now.

Roo · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 11:25 am

All good suggestions. While you're working with him, be careful about inadvertenly (sp?) rewarding him. For instance, letting him out of his crate while he's still barking. Sometimes I see people be like "fine" and they throw a disc or give in and give the dog what they want to get them to be quiet. This reinforces the behavior and teaches them that if they keep doing it eventually they will get rewarded. Obviously we need to let them out of the crate at a certain time and can't always wait them out. Plus a lot of times the barking is self-reinforcing so it will just continue. If you can develop a good "no reward mark", you can hopefully interrupt the barking for a short time and then let them out of their crate, give them a treat, throw the disc, etc while he's quiet. Just as we mark with a "yes" or a click to let the dog know that's what we want them to do, we can use a word or sound to let them know that is not what we want them to do, which is the "no reward mark".

Roo

Import · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:27 pm

All good suggestions, but what works the best is to take a stick and hit the crate as hard as you can when they bark :twisted:

Ok so maybe don't do that!! Roo hit the nail on the head. A lot of people get so fed up with the barking that they eventually take them out, which does reward the dog big time! So the dog then thinks, "Barking will eventually get me out of this crate! Yippee!!"

Do you ever crate Grady at home while you're still in the house? If you remember Blitzen from the expo, he was quiet. And he didn't even get to do anything that weekend, so he definitely had a lot of energy ready to go when I got home Sunday night, but he was quiet in the crate. He never used to be like that, in fact he was worse than Grady!! But what worked for us was, as some have already said, conditioning a default behavior in the crate. As JG said, barking does exhaust the dog eventually. What I did with Blitzen was make the crate fun. We played games where he would bolt to the crate when I said "kennel up" and then he'd get a treat. And he would stay in there until I released him, "free!" and he got a butt scratch! Notice how the better reward is when he was in the crate. The duration of time that he stayed in the crate increased and eventually I added the automatic down while in the crate. (This is something I need to work with on Solar... )

When I started to crate Blitzen outside of the home, at agility trials and such, the barking started all over again. So I brought out some yummy hotdogs and then basically did the same thing I would at home. And when the barking got less frequent, I would walk away for a second, and if he remained quiet, BAM! waterfall of hotdogs!!! This worked very well for me.

A client of mine had some problems with barking too and I had her do what I did, but that didn't work at all! So I had an idea. We trained the dog to bark on command. And then after that, we added a quiet command. Somehow, this worked for her dog! But there are a couple ideas, good luck!

Andrew

Denise · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:35 pm

I will chime in here and just add a thought--when I crated Murray at trials, he'd bark--not all the time, but when dogs would bark on course, he'd get excited. I tried covering his crate but that didn't help much as he could still hear them. Also, with him, everything was so stimulating that when I brought him out, he was just overloaded with "stuff" so it actually helped him to not cover the crate. I think several folks have had success with a stuffed Kong. :wink:

TeamGrady · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:48 pm

We have not kenneled Grady while we are at home. He is very good a going into his kennel with a "kennel up" command and generally does not bark when we leave (generally=not more that 10 times. We can see and hear him outside). Covering the kennel and a kong didn't seem to help Sunday. I'll try a combination of suggestion of reward for being quite and try some kennel games trying to get him use to being in his kennel while we are at home. Then we'll see how it goes on the 15th.

Mean while I'll be searching for a stick!! :lol:

Thanks everyone!
Paul & Shelley

Dianne · **Joined:** Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:16 pm **Posts:** 362

Paul I have the book Control Unleashed if you would like to look at it.

I know, I never seen Grady bark like that, guess he's getting more crazy for the disc.

Max goes crazy when he sees the disc, so covering works for him, but I would like it if I could get him to relax so he wouldn't have to be covered. I think I'll work on some of those same things too.

Dianne

rumblesmom · **Joined:** Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:57 pm **Posts:** 298

I agree with a lot of the suggestions given.

One thing I would add, is perhaps to practice the behavior during non-event times. Randomly drive to places with the dog crated, practice the ritual of leaving, coming, going, etc. Sometimes covering the crate helps, depends on the dog. You can also try giving the dog special items when crating in the car/at an event - like a stuffed kong - so he has something to do in the kennel. Reserve that special treat for your practice of this behavior. But, if you give him/her something to do, you can only give it contingent upon the desired behavior: quiet.

Never release the dog from the kennel for whining/barking. Even if you get only a millisecond of quiet, mark and reward it, then release. Practice entering and exiting the crate from the vehicle alot, again during non-event times.

Is the dog crated at any other times? I try to start new/foster dogs off with crate type games. I made a vid of what I do with them, if they have never been crated before or have negative association with the crate: www.youtube.com/pitzncatz There's a vid called Crate Training/Building Drive, in it I am training a 14 week old pit pup that I fostered for awhile. I try to build enthusiasm for the crate. I haven't seen Susan Garrett's crate games, but I'm told that the ideas are similar. I have seen her lecture and think she's great, so I'm sure that her methods would be fun and effective.

I regret not having worked more with Mojo on crate behavior as a youngster. he has great crate behavior at home, but not at events. He doesn't compete in anything, but is often along for the ride, or has to be crated if I take him to class. He's definitely gotten better over the years, but I regret not working on it earlier/not really knowing to do so as I didn't know as much about training then. Rumble crates nicely at events, and I think it is in part b/c he's a quiet guy anyway, but he's had the most rehearsal of it out of all my dogs. The one time he will make noise in a crate is if we are at flyball, and he sees me run Mojo. He doesn't seem to care if I run other people's dogs, but if I run Mojo at our practices, he squeals.

Barking is a hard behavior. I used to see alot of my flyball teammates struggle with it. It always bothered me to see some people squirt their dogs with water when they barked. It has to suck to be confined and squirted at. And honestly, it takes just as much physical effort to go to the kennel and randomly reward quiet behavior with praise and a treat, or release!

Andrea

PDrag · **Posted:** Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:48 am

I know that I will get slammed by the clicker community from this, but a bark collar could also be used. The bark collar is used to mark the bad behavior (barking) right away and does not reward them by you coming over and giving them attention, even if it is to try and correct them. Once they learn that if they bark in the kennel that they will get the bark collar correction and they settle down you can reward the quiet behavior with treats or with "Yes, good quiet".

As they become more quiet you can start to remove the bark collar and then reward them for being quiet, or if they start to bark again then bark collar can be put back on.

Just another way to try and control the barking.

Paul

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Help!! with Barking

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