ericamichele
Boxer Pal
Hello Boxerworld! Once again I have an issue with my dogs, and I really hope someone here can help! I've read about a gazillion threads on here about correcting demand barking, but I have yet to find one that addresses my particular issue.
Since I don't post regularly, let me give you a little background: I have a 4 year old male, Willie Nelson, and a rescued female, Lucy, whose age we guess to be around 3. Miss Lucy has recently taken up a lovely new habit: demand barking!! With advice from this forum, we broke Willie of this pretty quickly by just ignoring him or leaving the room-this was before we had Lucy. Now she has started it up, mainly when Willie is snuggling me and she's not getting any lovin', or when she wants to play and no one else does. We've tried ignoring her, but the thing is, Willie reacts. When she starts in, no joke, Willie will sigh, roll his eyes, turn away from her but eventually...he caves and will start playing with her. I read somewhere on here that we should leave the room, shutting Lucy (and her loud mouth) out, but when she quiets and we open the door back up, she acts like we were playing a brilliant game of hide-and-seek and she just found us! Will this just take persistence?
Ironically, Willie is definitely the more "barky" of the two, when it comes to things like cats in the yard, the mailman, etc. Lucy generally will "face-bump" us or whine when her needs aren't being met-she doesn't bark to be let out, or alert of us something outside. I guess I find her barking a lot harder to deal with; her bark is much higher-pitched and, frankly, it's irritating as hell
So I guess my question has two parts: How do I get Lucy to stop barking, and how to I get Willie to not reinforce her obnoxious behavior? Can anyone help me before I lose my mind?! Any advice GREATLY appreciated!!!!
Since I don't post regularly, let me give you a little background: I have a 4 year old male, Willie Nelson, and a rescued female, Lucy, whose age we guess to be around 3. Miss Lucy has recently taken up a lovely new habit: demand barking!! With advice from this forum, we broke Willie of this pretty quickly by just ignoring him or leaving the room-this was before we had Lucy. Now she has started it up, mainly when Willie is snuggling me and she's not getting any lovin', or when she wants to play and no one else does. We've tried ignoring her, but the thing is, Willie reacts. When she starts in, no joke, Willie will sigh, roll his eyes, turn away from her but eventually...he caves and will start playing with her. I read somewhere on here that we should leave the room, shutting Lucy (and her loud mouth) out, but when she quiets and we open the door back up, she acts like we were playing a brilliant game of hide-and-seek and she just found us! Will this just take persistence?
Ironically, Willie is definitely the more "barky" of the two, when it comes to things like cats in the yard, the mailman, etc. Lucy generally will "face-bump" us or whine when her needs aren't being met-she doesn't bark to be let out, or alert of us something outside. I guess I find her barking a lot harder to deal with; her bark is much higher-pitched and, frankly, it's irritating as hell
So I guess my question has two parts: How do I get Lucy to stop barking, and how to I get Willie to not reinforce her obnoxious behavior? Can anyone help me before I lose my mind?! Any advice GREATLY appreciated!!!!