Excessive Barking

[Meredith]

My corgi, Jynx is very, very vocal. All the time. It never really stops unless he is asleep. He barks at the drop of a hat, doorbell (which we disconnected), when he sees another dog out the window, when he sees a dog on tv, when he is out in the back yard by himself and when he see's one of our 3 cats
(this he has gotten better about).

The neighbors have complained, my parents have complained and I'm starting to complain. I need to stop or slow down the barking. I don't want to keep the poor puppy in his crate or the basement all the time, because I love playing with him but when I'm not he's barking!

I love Jynx to death, but we really need this to stop.

Any suggestions?

[tz1]

Hmm..this is what i would recommend..
exercise the dog more...I mean really, run the dog till it's so tired that it will just lie down after your exercise. dogs need exercise just like humans do, so perhaps the dog just has a lot of pent up energy and stress which makes it bark. exercising helps us and dogs calm down.

[lv4dogs]

I agree, a good dog is a tired dog.

Corgis are barkers, it's something they are known to do. This should of been discovered while you were researching the breed before you got one. But hey that alright besides it's too late now. With a little bit of training, patience & persistance you should be able to curb most of the barking. I doubt he's ever stop completely though.

Also I'd reccomend that you enroll him into a reputable obedience class. They can help you out tremedously. It will help teach you, the dog, help strenghten your bond and the class will wear him out too! The instructor can help you re-direct the behavior, to turn it into a desired behavior.

Sounds like a cutie! Good luck!

[tz1]

hehe, it seems like whenever Zero gets into trouble, he just has way too much energy and a lack of something better to do...like ripping up paper, nibbling at people's feet/socks, and just generally running around the house.

whenever this happens i take him for a run until he calms down + eventually just lies down and drinks water. then he'll be fine, relaxed and well behaved + usually will sleep for a couple hours.

[Sky57]

Excersice is a good idea, but tiring the dog out is a way of dealing with the symptoms and I think its worth taking a deeper look at the root cause of the problem. Given that Corgis are barkers does explain alot and its an easy habit for a dog to get into. You can find dog trainers that come to your house. It might cost $200 which is alot of money, but these people know what they are doing. I once had a Staffy that barked alot and was destructive and I a kelpie that I had no control of. I got a dog trainer to come out. He spent one and a half hours with me. In that time he showed me how to get my kelpie under control. Within 1 week (each day I spent 30 minutes repeating the steps the trainer told me about) I had full control of her walking next to me, even off the leash and it made our lives really good because now she can go anywhere with me (and I mean anywhere and she is now a complete angel). As for the staffy, the dog trainer told me about a lady who had a collie and it ate her back decking. Every morning the lady would ride her bike a few miles to the park with the dog running beside her. At the park she hit 100 tennis balls across to the other side of the park and the dog retrieved every one of them. Then she rode home, but the dog would sleep for a little while and recover. He explained how quickly dogs recover from physical acivity. He taught that lady how to keep the dog mentally active and this solved her issue. What he taught me was about keeping the dog mentally active and this was much better.

So though I have not dealt with this problem, I can highly recommend finding an experienced dog trainer/behaviourist and investing the money because I'll bet that your dog can be taught to behave differently. Can you imagine what life would be like for you and your dog if the barking stopped? The quality of life for all of you would be worth every cent of the $200 you spent. What I learned was that I needed the training. Once I knew how to communicate to my dogs and with my dogs, things changed so much for the better! I still know so little and I have a little Westie who is just gorgeous, but I'm about to call that trainer again because I need to stop my westie jumping over people and up at people when they visit and little things like that.

Good Luck with that