[Dailydrool] Two out of three, and unintended consequences

[Val lbrewerzwick]

Back to the drawing board.

I wrote that we had ordered the fake birdhouse devices that emit a high tone beep activated by dog barking.  And this worked in reducing barking for two of our three dogs. the net effect is truly astounding. Hurrrah,, and  yet...

We discovered, just as we humans have different sensibilities and styles; just as some things are too annoying to deal with for some of us (which will cause us to alter behaviors,  but not at all for others),  so too has been  the case for  our three individual dogs. They  are each different from the next.

Mila the basset finds the birdhouse bark activated tone annoying enough that she now only barks two or three times when a person walks by the house, then she stops.  This is remarkable.  She used to be a dog who once she started barking simply couldn’t stop of her own accord and barked and barked and barked.   (Our Harley was the same way—no off switch—nearly got us evicted)  This has been a great device for Mila,a reminder to stop.

Not so good for our previously traumatized former hunting dog, pit mix Ipo.  Ipo  hates that tone so much she has decided never to bark again and is even reluctant to go outside the house at all now in the event the beep will go off in response to a basset barking  (which breaks my heart and now I am reevaluating this whole exercise as I don’t want to take any joy from Ipo’s life)  except that the intervention has been effective in reducing our household barking and has therefore forestalled additional neighbor complaints and potential  threatened future police involvement, a good thing.

And Mariah?  Ah, Mariah!  Well, not surprisingly, Mariah is part of the problem (though not as big a problem as Mila’s lack of a shut off valve).  Mariah couldn’t care less about a tone set off by barking.  If she wants to bark, she barks.  She is not hard of hearing (like Chris’ dog).  She just ignores the beep.  “Hey,  Now I have an instrumental accompaniment to my yodeling.  What an honor! Yodel, on”).  when we hear Mariah barking for more than a minute or two, we call her  inside.  

I think overall this system is working, but I am worried about Ipo.  I want to restore her to the joy she was feeling in playing in the yard and sunbathing outside before we started on the barking interventions.  Anyone have any advice?  Val of Hawaii with Mila the normal, Mariah the Maraudah, and Ipo the traumatized, here at Barkers Anonymous