The Barking Dog

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Star is ready to hunt.

We currently have seven dogs: Yellow Boy, Daisy, Sarah, Star, Salt, Pepper & Shakers. Yep, seven. Some of them bark more than others. In fact, if we lived in the city, I'm pretty sure some people would find the barking level to be obnoxious at times.


We didn't want our dogs just barking all the time for no apparent reason. We had a challenge with Star because she was from a breeding operation where she was not really socialized. period. When we first got her, she was people shy, terribly aggressive toward other dogs and quite the barker.

She barked if you looked in her direction. She barked when you came out of the house. She barked when someone came up the driveway. She barked at new people, same old people, other dogs, other animals, and at things we didn't see. And sometimes she just barked. As I write this down, I realize that we assumed she was barking for a reason, not just barking. We just didn't always know what the reason was and sometimes she really didn't need to bark. We figured she was not properly socialized.

Once she became pregnant with her first litter, she had less energy for defense. She even let us pet her and rub her belly. And she didn't bark quite as much. We slowly realized that her barking was defensive. She had six puppies in that first litter and we certainly didn't want them to pick up Star's bad barking habits. We began to browse books stores, book racks, the library and to search the Internet for tips on breaking the barking habit. We even watched an Oprah episode on training dogs to behave.

Here is what we came away with. When your dog starts to bark you have about 30 seconds to correct her/him. Go to the dog and tell it No in a firm voice. When she/he stops barking, reward the dog with some loving attention and praise. The trick is to not yell No or say so often that you are "barking."

When we started going out to Star to tell her to stop barking, she would almost immediately calm down and at least look at us. That is all without us saying anything like No. Sometimes we would say, "What is it? Show me." The point is, she immediately relaxed when one of us came to her while she was barking. We also discovered that she barked a whole lot more when she was on a run or loose on the porch than if she were confined to a pen with a doghouse.

It was clear she felt threatened and that she needed to defend her/our territory. On the porch her territory became anything she could see, smell or hear. On a run, her territory was somewhat smaller and there was still a lot of nighttime barking. My husband took her squirrel hunting a few times and determined that she responded more to visual stimuli than scent or sound. It made sense that she barked more at night. She was less likely to clearly see what she smelt or heard.

By changing her territory to something that was more secure and probably more familiar, we enabled Star to feel less threatened by her environemnt. She also had less territory to defend and thus less reason to bark. By establishing a pattern of responding to her barks, we trained her to bark when she saw something out of the ordinary, not all the time.

It seems counter-intuitive to go to your dog when they start barking. But by saying no and responding to the barking, you establish that barking has a purpose and when it should be used. It does take time and patience, but even an improperly trained dog, like Star, can learn new tricks.

Let Slip The Dogs - NOT!

Puppies in a whirl

Thursdays are devoted to animal husbandry.

Lately we have been having a dog problem around here. Our "charming" dogs are eating a chicken nearly every day. Needless to say, I am about to go on a rampage over this, especially after I calculated the economic consequences of a dead $16 chicken that lays eggs nearly every day. The chicken murders have slowed down a bit since I threatened to execute the main criminal. My husband put him on his very own run very far from the chickens. Now I have the quite annoying, not properly socialized, new momma, Star to contend with. Seems motherhood has prompted a taste for chicken. While this is more excusable in theory, I still cannot afford it. Presently, she will have a new home in the old chicken coop for her and her puppies. Plans are to sell her off as soon as the puppies are old enough.

At Mule Shoe Farm like many small farms, the dogs have a purpose: to provide a guardian function, rid the yard of rodent pests, and act as an early warning system. These "jobs" are extensions of what dogs do naturally.

So is killing chickens, unless... We can all understand why a chicken is an attractive option to a dog. Folk wisdom holds that once a dog gets a taste for chicken, they never get over it. Folk wisdom also says to tie a chicken around a dogs neck, beat it with a chicken and various other remedies to cure it of chicken eating. We are instructed to essentially punish the dog for doing what it does by instinct. I do not believe punishment is the right answer. In fact it can be very counterproductive.

The key is to put the dog in a situation where doing its job correctly is much easier than not doing its job. In other words, don't give the dog the option of not doing its job. At the same time, the dog must be permitted to act naturally in a natural setting as much as possible. Since dogs are long domesticated, this could include anything from house confinement to fenceless containment depending on your budget. My budget is for water, not champagne or beer.

Low cost solutions include fenced areas for dogs or chickens or confine the dogs to a pen. I have found that obtaining used fencing is not that difficult and usually free. We also have plenty of rope lying around for this or that other thing. If the dog most benefits from being on a run, we will place the dog on a run. To keep the dog actively employed, the run is strategically placed near garden areas that would otherwise be subject to grazing.

In the case of new mom with socialization issues, it is prudent to keep her in a pen with her puppies. As the weather is quite variable, it needs to be somewhere that we can easily access with electricity for heat lamps and well-protected from the elements. Done.

Now what about the chickens being eaten. Really, I haven't found an effective way to keep the older dogs from killing the chickens once they already do. What I have noticed is that the younger dogs who have been around chickens since birth, could care less about the birds and in fact, pointedly ignore them. There it is. The solution. Star's puppies are not be chicken eaters if they are exposed to chickens from the beginning, even if Star, herself is a chicken killer.

This new litter can be introduced to the chickens individually once their eyes are open. To do this, we take the puppies one at a time in our hands and carry them to the chickens. Holding the puppies on the other side of the fence, the chickens approach and take a look. The puppy gets a look. Let this continue for up to five minutes or however much patience the puppy has. Make sure you take the puppy away before, it gets bored with the situation. Do this for each puppy and do this frequently as they get older. Maybe once a week to once every two weeks. How often depends on the relative intelligence of your dog for these things. The dogs pictured here, remember things quite well and are easily trainable. We do the introductions about three times for each one and move on to other things.