Barking Triggered By Fear

[Jasslyn]

Hi All

I have 2 border collies, Flynn and Jasper. Flynn is nearly two and has a barking problem which I've figured out is partly a fear problem. He barks at trucks, excavators, construction noises (including power tools) and thunderstorms. He also barks at birds but I think that's for fun.

Normally when he's in barking mode it's really hard to get his attention to get him to settle down. So I've been working on getting his focus on me when he's outside. I've been staying outside with him and when he starts to focus on whichever noise is upsetting him, I've been telling him to look at me and giving him a treat for obeying.

Yesterday I sat outside with him for 2 hours while the birds were flying over and gave him a treat if a flock flew over but he stayed by my side instead of chasing. Then when I came inside, I went out every 5-10 minutes and gave him praise (sometimes with a treat) if he was still being quiet. If he started barking I went out immediately and got his focus back on me and told him to stop and settle down. This is what I did when he was a pup to get him to stop barking at birds so this is just a refresher course.

I intended to try the same process this morning with the trucks and excavators. This morning there is a truck pouring a concrete slab just a few doors down from us and there is very noisy excavation a few blocks away. Flynn and Jasper like to go out for a run and play straight after breakfast so I put them out at about 6:45. Flynn had a short burst of barking when he first went out but I managed to get him to focus back on me and settle down. He had been quiet for 10 minutes so I went out to praise him for being quiet and found him in the kennel. Flynn doesn't normally use his kennel but right now he is curled up in there, refusing to come out and wouldn't even take a treat or his favourite squeaky toy when I told him he was great for being quiet. His body language is telling me he's really scared On the one hand, I guess its good that he's found somewhere he considers safe when he's scared. On the other hand, it's just not good that he's this scared about what are everyday noises in my neighbourhood (it's a new estate).

As well as the above method of rewarding him for quiet, settled behaviour, I've also purchased a sound desensitisation cd. I don't know if anyone has had success with these but I'm hoping it will get Flynn over his fear of these noises, as well as preventing similar problems in Jasper, my 12 week old puppy. The CD instructions say to focus on one noise at a time so I'm working on thunderstorms because they're both scared of them. It's going well. I didn't realise Flynn's fear of the excavators was so bad though and I'm thinking I should have started the desensitisation with those noises. Do you think it's a bad idea to change now?

Yesterday I was able to take him for his walk at a different time of day so I took him on a path that takes us near to where the excavators are working. There was just one working at the time and he walked by it, at first a little tentatively but he soon got absorbed in sniffing a tree, so I actually thought that was progress as his attention was not on the excavator. I was hoping that seeing the source of the noise would help him - he used to be scared of buses but I slowly got him out of that by letting him see them at an ever decreasing distance.

I'm also leaving the tv on inside at all times in the hope that he'll focus on that familiar, comfortable noise instead. Am I trying too many things at once?

If anyone has any advice/suggestions for getting this under control, please give them. I haven't had any complaints from neighbours about his barking, I want to get it under control before that happens and also because I want Flynn to be happy and I don't think he is. I want him to stop barking but I don't want it replaced by him suffering in silence - I want him to not be scared of these things.

[JulesP]

From what you have said he doesn't sound like a happy dog. Does he look happy when he is barking at the things? Or does he look worried?

What do you do with Flynn? walking, training etc. What did you do when he was a puppy? i.e. puppy classes.

What do you feed him?

Where did he come from? farm or show bred

Probably needing a more holistic approach then just training to stop him barking.

[Jasslyn]

From what you have said he doesn't sound like a happy dog. Does he look happy when he is barking at the things? Or does he look worried?

What do you do with Flynn? walking, training etc. What did you do when he was a puppy? i.e. puppy classes.

What do you feed him?

Where did he come from? farm or show bred

Probably needing a more holistic approach then just training to stop him barking.

When he's barking at the birds, yes he looks like he's having fun. When he's barking at noises, he looks frenzied.

He is walked daily for 30-40 minutes, we also do a "formal" training session every night for 15 minutes, there is also informal, unstructured training in the morning and throughout the evening. He now also has Jasper to play with. The boys get a kong each every morning before I go to work. Yes he went to puppy classes. We did start obedience but it was too painful for me physically so I teach him at home using more gentle methods (for my back).

He came from a registered breeder.

Yes, I agree, it's not just about stopping the barking. I want him to be happy AND not barking. So I think I need to first heal the stress that the noises are causing and that will, hopefully, in turn make the barking cease. I just don't know how to go about doing that.

I read a suggestion in the forum to scatter food around the yard to give the dogs something to do so I just went out and did that and he was interested in that and has piped down since foraging but he is still running laps around the backyard. I try to alternate his toys but he destroys any toy that has stuffing in it and chews up tennis balls. The only toys he doesn't destroy immediately are rope toys. He's not very interested in playing fetch... he'll get the ball at most 3 times and then seems to get frustrated with the fact I keep throwing the ball away. He loves empty plastic bottles, so I give him my empty milk bottles and we play soccer with them. I just also bought a "bungee rope" at the MegaPet Warehouse, it's an elasticised rope that you can hang on the fence so there's resistance when they tug. He hasn't shown an interest in it yet but the puppy loves it.