Annoying Neighbors

[Mr-Remington]

My next door neighbor has 3 dachshunds and a chihuahua. Her dogs bark constantly when they are outside. Remi has recently started to react to them. He knows to leave it, but if I don't stop him before he gets to the gate than I literally have to walk over to him and get into his eye sight, and tell to stop. He will walk away and as soon as I'm a few feet away he will try again. We put a tarp up on every part of the fence we can so he can't see them. They still bark every single time they are outside, and they won't stop until she takes them back in. If the neighbor knows we are outside she will let her dogs out. I also caught her screaming at Remi the other day from the front part of her gate. She was literally almost hanging over our fence screaming "Shut up you stupid dog! Be quiet you nasty mutt!" and than kicking the gate. (The way our fence is set up is our whole backyard is half her front and half her backyard. )

My question is, is there a way to teach Remi to completely ignore them?

I've been working on him leaving them if I catch him in time before he makes it to the gate, but I can't redirect him as easily if I'm across the yard, or in the house.

Most of the time I have to cut his play time short, or can't let him rest outside. He loves to be outside, whether it's to play or just lay in the shade. I feel bad that I can't let him stay out for as long.

I've tried Kikopups video on stopping a dog from barking. But so far like I said he will only ignore them if I catch him in time.

 

[DevonW]

Neighbours, Gotta love them. I know how you feel. We moved away from obnoxious neighbours and ended up beside two more.

Start by training your neighbour. She's getting some sort of crude entertainment via harassing your dog. You have to make it boring and no longer fun to do and eventually she'll stop. If she's going to let her dogs out every time she thinks your dog is out you need to make her believe that he's out when he's not even if it means going out there by yourself and praising an invisible dog to entice her to let her dogs out. Once her dogs go back in because it got no reaction from your dog it's time to for real let your dog out. If she lets them back out again I'd make a loud enough comment that she can hear like "wow those dogs must have the runs" and bring your dog back in the house before he has a chance to react. Boring, embarrassing, and it stops.

In the mean time I'd keep up training him to leave it and stop barking on command. All it takes is time and patience. Don't forget to increase to criteria for distance work. A lot of dogs seem to believe just because they're a few feet away from you means they don't have to listen any more.

 

[Mr-Remington]

Neighbours, Gotta love them. I know how you feel. We moved away from obnoxious neighbours and ended up beside two more.

Start by training your neighbour. She's getting some sort of crude entertainment via harassing your dog. You have to make it boring and no longer fun to do and eventually she'll stop. If she's going to let her dogs out every time she thinks your dog is out you need to make her believe that he's out when he's not even if it means going out there by yourself and praising an invisible dog to entice her to let her dogs out. Once her dogs go back in because it got no reaction from your dog it's time to for real let your dog out. If she lets them back out again I'd make a loud enough comment that she can hear like "wow those dogs must have the runs" and bring your dog back in the house before he has a chance to react. Boring, embarrassing, and it stops.

In the mean time I'd keep up training him to leave it and stop barking on command. All it takes is time and patience. Don't forget to increase to criteria for distance work. A lot of dogs seem to believe just because they're a few feet away from you means they don't have to listen any more.

This is the first time I've ever had annoying neighbors. It sucks now that I have Remi since she finds it fun. I just learned that she is the neighborhood crazy lady. Go figure we stuck next to her.

I'm horrible about distance work, but I shall start working on that tonight. Hopefully Remi can learn that I mean more treats from far away.

 

[Mr-Remington]

Start by training your neighbour.

All I thought of was me clicker training her.

 

[Adrianna & Calvin]

Oh how annoying!

Two thoughts: one is to use Premack. Premack is perfect for annoying behaviors

The other is more hardline, and one I used for my dog when I moved into a neighborhood with a ton of feral cats. Dog-friendly housing is tough to find in Brooklyn and I couldn't afford to have anyone complain about my dog. SO, here's what I did: No Barking in the Yard. Ever. I would let him out, and if he spotted at cat in any adjoining yard and started a ruckus, I ran out and rapidly but silently marched him back in immediately. If I let him out again and he started up, I ran out again and marched him back in. I set it up so I could do this every single time at first, and yes the first few days were rough! And thereafter, if we got anything but a soft warning woof, I dropped what I was doing, ran out, and brought him in. Soapy dishwater hands, wearing just my nightgown, whatever, the Rule was the Rule. No Barking.

(As an FYI, this did not stop him from barking at the cable repairman who decided to take his life into his hands by climbing into my yard from the next so it does not stop "emergency" barking, but it definitely stops barking at a chronic stimulus, esp. if the yard is a high-value reward. He loved being out there, just lying in the sun if nothing else, so an aborted yard trip was a big deal to him.)

Since your neighbor seems like a crazypants who will may think of new ways to stimulate your dog, you may end up having to teach No Barking At Dogs and No Barking At This Particular Crazypants. I admit it was not easy at first, but after I did it I had literally years of bark-free yard time. Personally I would rather run into my yard in my nightgown a few times :-) than run out countless times to holler "leave it."

PS Yes this counts as negative punishment! The good thing (yard time) is removed when the behavior occurs, decreasing the likelihood of that behavior. Like a "time out" for a kid. I wouldn't use it to teach a dog to 'spin' or 'stay', but did with something like this, which affected our housing and my day-to-day sanity

 

[Mr-Remington]

Oh how annoying!

Two thoughts: one is to use Premack. Premack is perfect for annoying behaviors

The other is more hardline, and one I used for my dog when I moved into a neighborhood with a ton of feral cats. Dog-friendly housing is tough to find in Brooklyn and I couldn't afford to have anyone complain about my dog. SO, here's what I did: No Barking in the Yard. Ever. I would let him out, and if he spotted at cat in any adjoining yard and started a ruckus, I ran out and rapidly but silently marched him back in immediately. If I let him out again and he started up, I ran out again and marched him back in. I set it up so I could do this every single time at first, and yes the first few days were rough! And thereafter, if we got anything but a soft warning woof, I dropped what I was doing, ran out, and brought him in. Soapy dishwater hands, wearing just my nightgown, whatever, the Rule was the Rule. No Barking.

(As an FYI, this did not stop him from barking at the cable repairman who decided to take his life into his hands by climbing into my yard from the next so it does not stop "emergency" barking, but it definitely stops barking at a chronic stimulus, esp. if the yard is a high-value reward. He loved being out there, just lying in the sun if nothing else, so an aborted yard trip was a big deal to him.)

Since your neighbor seems like a crazypants who will may think of new ways to stimulate your dog, you may end up having to teach No Barking At Dogs and No Barking At This Particular Crazypants. I admit it was not easy at first, but after I did it I had literally years of bark-free yard time. Personally I would rather run into my yard in my nightgown a few times :-) than run out countless times to holler "leave it."

PS Yes this counts as negative punishment! The good thing (yard time) is removed when the behavior occurs, decreasing the likelihood of that behavior. Like a "time out" for a kid. I wouldn't use it to teach a dog to 'spin' or 'stay', but did with something like this, which affected our housing and my day-to-day sanity

I will probably start bringing him in each and every time he barks at something, this includes people walking by. Hopefully he will get the point pretty fast, but than again he is stubborn. Thank you for the advice.