|Barked: Fri Sep 5, '14 5:12am PST |
|I think rewarding him for not barking is a good approach. I don't know if you can get his attention this way, but in my experience, giving a dog treats for doing something is more effective than just giving the treat. I often simply ask for eye contact and give a treat for that even if they held it for only a microsecond, and then work up to longer periods of time. If that's particularly difficult for the dog, I'll try to stand between them and whatever is getting them so excited. This would often help them focus on me. If that didn't work, making a funny noise (such as a barking a single time myself) would often make them look at me to try and figure out was going on, and then I could reward them for that. Unfortunately, if I used whatever sound several times, they became desensitized to it.
When Dolce was frightened by something specific (e.g. clothes on a clothes line or automatic doors), I would ask her to do something while whatever was so frightening was at a distance, and slowly go closer to it. You may be able to use this approach to get him used to bikes, wheelchairs, etc. Drifter would occasionally be upset by something as well, mostly when he didn't know what it was. As he didn't do it out of real fear or aggression, I found it most effective to let him go up and examine the object more closely. After he sniffed it a few times, he understood that it was harmless and not that interesting.
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