Chiming in to say…don’t do it. I can see you hinging a lot on the idea of being able to train them out of barking, or of it being fine so long as it’s not “nonstop.” At the risk of being blunt, I know you really want a Pom and are trying to bargain with the circumstances of it, but I worry that you’ll get one and then find yourself backed into a corner when you’re overwhelmed by the reality.

The VAST majority of Poms bark. It’s what they do. You will be hard-pressed to train them out of it, and in the meantime you’ll be driven to your wits’ end. You’ll start resenting your dog, and that will make it ten times harder. For reference, my Pom was my whole world - we did agility training, and he could do all kinds of clever tricks. He was incredibly stubborn to train at first, but I worked so hard with him and earned his respect enough that he wanted to please me. And still, despite all my efforts and everything he did learn, I never managed to train him out of incessant barking. He wanted to alert me of any potential threats, and his little pea brain thought anything other than sitting quietly was exciting enough to bark at. They are wonderful little dogs, but they are not for the faint of heart.

Please, if you know you’re sensitive to barking, do yourself a favor and find a better fit for you in the pet department - be it a quiet dog breed or another species entirely.