Dog advice please...

[YourRabbitGirl]

too many unknowns there for me.

my intuition says the sooner you break this bad habit the better.

i like quiet, a dog that barks for no reason or at wild life would be a pest. the only reason i would want a dog to bark is if there is danger.

I agree... once your dog started to be a chatterbox. that a hard habit to break. sounds like a job for a dog whisperer or some sort. like the saying goes. "It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks." or was it?

 

[ducks4you]

Some things are hard to teach. My 12yo dog, "Pyg" is very quiet. My dog "Xena" (GS/Collie, 1998-2008) was kinda yappy. Eva (17mo GS) Does bark and growl at things, but she has learned to be quiet bc she loves Pyg and Pyg is quiet. We had a horse herd leader that was like that. He taught the herd how to behave and he taught them to not be afraid of things, giving them courage. Many horse people like to keep a good example as their herd leader for that very reason.
We have the brains and it takes a lot of effort to exert our influence. We have to continue to ask our dogs to change their behaviors. Your dog gets pleasure from barking. If it becomes less pleasurable to bark, and more pleasurable to behave then the behavior might change. Excessive barking and yapping is a bad habit.
I know that people like to keep their dogs outside. I don't intend to criticize this if the dog is well cared for. However, an inside dog spends a great deal more time with their owner and you have more time to say "no" to bad habits. Consistancy is the key, as it is with raising children.

 

[seedcorn]

No one here that I can tell but I see owners trying to teach dogs to not do (bad behavior) what their dogs breed was bred to do. Makes me want to go up to them and say “Here’s your sign!”

 

[Prairie Rose]

Oh, the pyrenees was bred to bark and guard and be mostly independent from people. Trying to get Boone to stop that is like asking the sun to stop rising in the east, and not what I wanted for him at all. What I was trying to do was find a middle ground between his old (complete lack of) a routine or even having a home at all, and what I wanted from him here with me at his new home while keeping him safe and all us of sane. Change like that doesn't happen overnight just because I want it to.

It took us a little while, but we found it. The dog has settled in nicely, and only barks when there is actually a problem, now that he's used to our much busier neighborhood. He spends exactly as much time as he wants outdoors, and as much time as he wants inside with us too. He picks and chooses what he wants...when it is quiet out or the weather is bad, he often only goes out to relieve himself and spends hours keeping me company. If there's something going on that interests him or he feels the need to survey his territory, he can easily spend most of the day or night outside watching the world go by...doing his job. His presence and warning bark has certainly kept the local coyote out of the yard this winter, and the deer don't get nearly as close to my gardens as they used to!

This next bit is a little drifty, but I have been trying to explain it to a friend who doesn't understand why I continue to let him 'work' as a dog, and not just make him a pet, and I think putting it down in actual words will help.

I don't feel the need to train bits and pieces of the breed that make my dog interesting and unique away. I don't want a puppet of a dog, I just needed to have the ability to put some of the more socially disruptive habits on command so I can communicate with him that there is a time when that is not appropriate. He can (and has) learned to sit and come and stay and recall and even to shake hands and speak, but I'm not going to be heartless enough to break him from his purpose in life, which is to guard his home and his livestock. That's like taking a living creature and turning it into a little robot to do only what I want it to do, and I have issues with that. I've seen it done in both dogs and horses, and it breaks my heart every time.

 

[flowerbug]

...
Consistancy is the key, as it is with raising children.

the other good point to remember is that it doesn't usually do all that much good to try to correct an animal for something that happened a while ago.

 

[baymule]

I think you have a good handle on it. Boone is lucky to have found you.

 

[flowerbug]

Oh, the pyrenees was bred to bark and guard and be mostly independent from people. Trying to get Boone to stop that is like asking the sun to stop rising in the east, and not what I wanted for him at all. What I was trying to do was find a middle ground between his old (complete lack of) a routine or even having a home at all, and what I wanted from him here with me at his new home while keeping him safe and all us of sane. Change like that doesn't happen overnight just because I want it to.

It took us a little while, but we found it. The dog has settled in nicely, and only barks when there is actually a problem, now that he's used to our much busier neighborhood. He spends exactly as much time as he wants outdoors, and as much time as he wants inside with us too. He picks and chooses what he wants...when it is quiet out or the weather is bad, he often only goes out to relieve himself and spends hours keeping me company. If there's something going on that interests him or he feels the need to survey his territory, he can easily spend most of the day or night outside watching the world go by...doing his job. His presence and warning bark has certainly kept the local coyote out of the yard this winter, and the deer don't get nearly as close to my gardens as they used to!

This next bit is a little drifty, but I have been trying to explain it to a friend who doesn't understand why I continue to let him 'work' as a dog, and not just make him a pet, and I think putting it down in actual words will help.

I don't feel the need to train bits and pieces of the breed that make my dog interesting and unique away. I don't want a puppet of a dog, I just needed to have the ability to put some of the more socially disruptive habits on command so I can communicate with him that there is a time when that is not appropriate. He can (and has) learned to sit and come and stay and recall and even to shake hands and speak, but I'm not going to be heartless enough to break him from his purpose in life, which is to guard his home and his livestock. That's like taking a living creature and turning it into a little robot to do only what I want it to do, and I have issues with that. I've seen it done in both dogs and horses, and it breaks my heart every time.

i don't have any problem with what you wrote, it sounds like you found what you needed and wanted. at first i wasn't sure of that. good for the both of you and the rest of your family and animals (and gardens!).

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

the other good point to remember is that it doesn't usually do all that much good to try to correct an animal for something that happened a while ago.

I agree.. the dog needs to be trained onset.. not after. it's not that they cant remember. it's just that they don't have enough know-how on what needs to be known.

 

[ducks4you]

Fascinating program on NOVA, with the focus on dogs, although they did diverge into dolphins, sharks and birds.

Inside Animal Minds

In this series, go inside the brains of three smart animals—dogs, birds, and dolphins.

www.pbs.org

Here are a few more articles with additional investigatory research/results. IGNORE the title of #2. It isn't about that:

Why dogs are so different from wolves

www.psychologytoday.com

Wolves Beat Dogs on Logic Test

Wolves do better on some logic tests than dogs, a new study found.

www.livescience.com