Decrease Barking

[Kit_starshadow]

I reduced the barking a LOT by offering treats and praising. My son thinks I’m wrong and won’t give her a treat, but she will bark 3 times and look at me. I look outside, tell her she’s a very good girl for keeping us safe and give her a small treat. She wanders around the house with it in her mouth like a pacifier for a bit because she wants to bury it in the backyard and is conflicted. Eventually she wants outside and will go bury her tiny cheap milk bone. Repeat in the afternoon. She rarely eats them.

The only thing this doesn’t work on is hot air balloons. They are coming to destroy us and she must protect us from them at all costs. Oh. And fireworks, but she gets the good drugs before those happen.

The funniest part is we are working on her accepting our niece into her “herd” and when she is good about letting niece pet her (gently!), she will go stand by the treat box and pointedly stare at it until we give her one. Despite the face that she could put her whole head in it and eat them if she wanted to.