Yapping dogs

While I write this, I' am listening to a dog that has been yapping for over an hour.

I would hate to think that my dogs would bark to the extent that the neighbours got fed up with them. I've done my best to encourage them to bark when someone comes to the house, but then to stop.

I appreciate it is more difficult to deal with a dog that barks when you are not there, although where I live dog owners seem to think it's great of their dogs bark constantly, to deter burglars. I just don't think a dog that is constantly barking, is a happy relaxed dog. I feel very sorry for the animals.

What do you think?

 

I have lived in places before where there are dogs which bark the whole day long or worse, the whole night long. Dogs don't bark without a reason. The reason could be that they are tied up and they want to go out. Another reason could be that there is a threat near them all the time. Like strange people passing by the fence every now and then.

If you know the owner of that yapping dog, you can go over and find out what the problem is.

 

I agree if a dog is barking for hours on end it's probably not content. When my mother came to visit me she was worried about my next door neighbour's dog as it was locked outside and barking, howling and whimpering constantly. She wanted to go over and talk to the neighbours or give the dog some attention herself. Sadly the neighbours aren't friendly and although they were home refused to answer the door. Thankfully they just moved out yesterday, hopefully they take better care of their dog. Like you I feel sorry for dogs that bark constantly. Sometimes it seems like a sign that their owners are negligent.

 

Good for you. It's one thing to deal with the neighbor's noisy dogs, it's another to deal with the people themselves.

My dogs will bark repetitively if they see the stray dogs coming into their turf which means near our home. Our neighbor's dogs are free to wander everywhere which is a big problem as they aren't being taken care of. Ours are always behind the fence but since it's like a pack of dogs going into the area of another pack of dogs, a bark-a-thon initiates.

Fortunately, it isn't endless. It doesn't even last for more than 5 minutes. It also comes to a halt when I go out to drive the neighbor's dogs away.

 

Actually our neighbor's dogs are barking at this moment and I could say I got used to it already.
Although still irritating as they also tend to bark around 3AM and wakes me up.
Our dog would bark a lot when a stranger is coming in the compound but would stop the moment they could see or maybe feel that we knew that stranger. One of our dog would really bark a lot when he sees other dog passing in the gate.Good thing that he sleeps inside so that he could not disturb neighbors in the middle of the night.

 

Terriers are known for their barking. Misha carries the trait. I've been working with her incessantly to control unnecessary barking. Not only is it annoying to the neighbors but to the inhabitants of this house (me!).

I don't think dogs need to be trained to protect their territory. It is their instinct. I know Misha will bark when she feels threatened. I try to keep it at a minimum. The poor old lady who walks from her porch to her car each morning is a threat to no one.

I am employing two methods to keep her barking to a minimum. The first is the shaker can. This is to stop her when she is going wild. She is terrified of the can. Sometimes it is needy to break her from her frenzy. The mail carrier and the UPS driver are her usual victims.

The second is talking to her. If I am in the other room and she barks because there was a noise, I approach the door saying "Thank you. You told me."--in a very firm voice. I crowd her out of the doorway and point for her to leave. I repeat it to get the message across. This works about 95% of the time. Of course, she usually walks away grumbling to herself. It's funny how a dog can talk back. But, she does walk away.

I am sensitive to her barking because I know how it is to be the neighbor. Where I used to live, the family on the corner owned 4 Chihauhaus. They had small front fence around the house that was chain link. The dogs could see every person who walked by. The dogs were out there all day and sometimes all night. I heard them bark all day and then well into 3 or 4 in the morning many times.

I agree that they were not happy dogs. The people rarely interacted with them. They let them out to the front yard and then ignored them all day. The dogs were anxious all the time because of the people that walked by. It was the corner house, so naturally, they saw a lot of foot traffic. It made the dogs nervous.

 

They really, really drive me nuts. While it's not uncommon for dogs to bark for no real reason, it shouldn't go on and on without either being corrected or addressed in some way.

 

I agree with Melody normally a dog will stop barking if their owner talks to them either to soothe and reassure them or to tell them the behaviour is unacceptable. In most circumstances it seems dogs bark because their owners do nothing. It's normal for dogs to bark and I don't mind if it's only for a minutes it's when they bark endlessly that it becomes a problem.It's hard not to ponder if a dog is being neglected in some circumstances.

 

In a way, dogs barking incessantly is somewhat like babies crying non-stop. Something is definitely wrong somewhere. If there's nothing wrong with the dogs, then there must be something wrong with the owners. I wonder if there are any laws governing this. Something like no barking allowed in this area from midnight to 5 am.

 

I'm sure it'd probably fall under public nuisance/noise laws. It would be like playing excessively loud music during those hours or letting your car alarm go off for hours on end.

 

This problem of barking or yapping dogs remind me of a technique taught to me by my dog trainer friend.

He told me that dogs tend to howl at certain times of the night. So just before those times, he said to use a soft cloth to tie up the muzzle of the dog. After maybe a week of such training, the dog will learn not to howl. He had used this technique successfully to train silent Dobermanns. No idea if it would work with other breeds.

 

Dogs yapping all day means that the owners aren't home. The dogs are lonely and would rather have the owner home.

 

To be honest, I can't agree with it. My Homer definitely isn't lonely nor unhappy, yet, he barks all the time. He seems to like doing it. He barks when he is excited or cheerful, he barks at people passing by, at new objects in our house, he barks at birds when they're singing... I'm sure that he is very fond of his voice, lol. Fortunately, we live in a house with a big garden, so our neighbors don't hear him.