How to control your dog's barking? - Page 3

A kennel outdoors should have lots of toys in it, balls, chewies, tugs, and I mean ALOT!! Puppies get bored after 20-30 minutes and barking seems to get him/her the attention he/she is so desperatly wanting. Don't crate the dog to stop the barking, he/she will feel the crate is a punishment and not feel it a safe place anymore. I suggest if you work all day and aren't able to come home on lunch breaks, or every couple hours and no one is home all day, than you need to hire a dog sitter to come and play with the dog and take for walks. look at leerburgs sight for his solution to stop barking. It really is a great article and he will give you lots of great advice. Much luck!

Charlie,Charlie,Charlie...You need to step back and check yourself!And while you are there,re read all of my previous post's,because not once did I say anything about using a muzzle on my dog's.I don't need to,but if nuisance barking should become a problem,then I may give it a try.Im sure I will try alot of different training avenue's until I found the one that worked.I was merely throwing out a suggestion,take it or leave it..that is Johan's choice. And unless you want to eat well,be loved,and have a human that truly care's for you...then NO you wouldn't want to be my dog!!!:)

Thanks for all the replies. You guys have gave me great ideas to try. The reason why I leave Yash (my 5 month pup) outside in his kennel run is because we used to leave him in our backyard with all the bedding plants and he would chew them up. My wife was not very pleased. So i build him a kennel run. My wife and I work long hours so we leave him in his kennel run before we leave for work and play with him when we get home. But once we put him back into the kennel run he would go crazy and start barking wanting us to play with him again. Yash is very playful with ongoing energy and he loves it when we take out the hose to water our plants. He would start to run around then jump into the water and try to bite the water and the nozel. Therefore, I do not think the citronella spray will work. He will probably continue barking until all the citronella runs out. lol. I don't like the idea of the muzzle or electric collar. Today before work, I left a radio on outside. I talked to my neighbour when i got home and he said that Yash's barking was reduced. I hope this will keep up. D.H i really like your idea about laying out food on the ground for him to search. Not only will he be occupied, he will be using his senses which will be great for tracking in the future. I am also going to the idea of hanging the rope. Excellent suggestions. I think Yash will love playing with it :) Best regards 2 u all Johan

From "The German Shepherd Dog in Word and Picture", by v Stephanitz, 1925, pge. 285 in the 1994 Hoflin reprint edition: "I have accordingly, for a long time uttered warnings against keeping our shepherd dogs in kennels, and against onesided breeding for beauty as opposed to efficiency. The shepherd dog is a working dog, he was born so, and only as such can he remain "a shepherd dog"; the dog which we value and love. His abounding "joie de vivre" must be utilised, and he must be allowed to work even when kept by an amateur. When he cannot be employed in his proper vocation with the flocks, he must work in another occupation which lies within his scope by means of his development. A substitute work must be found for him at all costs, for if we demand no work of him in a manner useful to our purposes, he will seek to create a sphere for himself and will only too easily go astray. Such an activity which the dog discovers for himself very often brings harm to his owner, and is sure to harm himself, too; the latter case is true only from our human point of view when he gets a thrashing, for "what's one man's meat, is another man's poison." ----end of quote----- As someone else already pointed out, your dog is not barking 'for no reason'. He's barking to communicate, but you don't speak 'dog' fluently enough to translate it just yet. That's part of your job--figure out what he's trying to tell you, and address that issue. As a member of a social species, isolation away from his companions, human or otherwise, is punishment, and is unlikely to be accepted without protest. Frankly, I don't see the point of having a dog if one is going to banish it from one's living quarters. There are species which are far less social, and which do not suffer any consequences from restricted interaction with humans...cats are a good choice for that type of lifestyle. They won't make a racket if you sent them outside for the better part of your day.

ok you guys have gone on and on about this kennel thing. I for one don't kennel my dogs. But most breeders do....and they live out there...I think it is enough bashing of this guy because he keeps his dog in a kennel. He is trying to make a safe place for his dog while he and his wife are at work. This is not a bad thing. I am very glad to see that he was able to take the advice that he thought was usefull and ingnore the rest. I have a client that is getting a puppy from me and she has come to this site on and off in the past week...She has been reading everything on here and has learned alot....BUT when we were talking on the phone she told me that she was afraid to ask any question because she would be "put in the frying pan" by most of the people on this site. And I hate to have to agree with her. Here is someone that just asked a simple question about help on stopping the dog from barking and you guys act like he has hog tied the dog in a small pen and left him there for hours and hours. There is nothing wrong with haveing a kennel run for your dog while you are gone during the day. Why does everyone have to assume that the dog lives there?? Why can't we assume the best, that the dog is only there while he is at work....and just answer is question we all have dogs and we have all had the dog that wouldn't quite barking!!!what did you do to stop it? I have one right now that is a young dog and he will bark for hours at a time....he has learned that I will come out and see him weather to tell him to shut up or to get him out..this has caused the problem to get worse...of course (I don't need a Duh here) So I just let him bark and bark he did for about 4 days straight. I of course went out to feed him and clean water, but that was it...I didn't even talk to him when I went out ther. Now he is very quite when I am not out there...He does of course get very excited and bark when I am out there. He has also come up in drive and has even bonded more with me. He is so happy that I am letting him out he will pay attention for longer periods of time....very nice. His training is doing much better. Actually I have started putting him up if he doesn't stay near me..so he is learning that if I walk into the front yard he must fallow or he will be back in the kennel run. I personally think that to many people spoil thier dogs to much. When I have a dog that is done with all training yes that dog lives in the house with me and gets to be the spoiled dog in the house...but if you don't train a dog as a young pup that he will have to sometimes be alone then you have all kinds of issues that you have now taught the dog. And I don't think that having him alone during the day while his owners are at work is a bad thing...I have a client that did the dog sitter thing because someone told them that they would be "bad" people if the left the 5 month old alone by himself (in the beginning they did have someone come in and check on the pup...I think this is a great thing) And so everyday the dog sitter would come in and play and walk the dog..he was never left alone for more than a few hours at a time. Then one day she had a car acciedent on the way to thier house (the pet sitter) she didn't get to call them until later (it was a bad one) so the dog went about 6 hours by himself....He lost it...he distroid everthing...he broke out of the kennel and ripped up the yard then ate the back door...ended up breaking a window to get into the house and distroid the house...ALL BECAUSE HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO BE ALONE. So befor you all cruesify this guy for having his dog "learn to be alone" think of all the issues that you can cause by no teaching this valuable thing. Now they have a one year old dog that they are teaching this and it is much harder at this age then when he was a pup. ok sorry to ramble..and I am sure that my spelling is off on a few things, please don't send me hate mail that I can't spell. Heather

Johan,Depending on the size of your kennel,You can put a small plastic pool in it since he loves water play/prey.Drop some toys..rope..ball in it to occupy him.You can also put a couple of cookies in a coffee can and leave it with a top on it.But make sure their are no sharp edges once he is through playing with it and opens it to find the treat.

Thank you HEXE!