[afauth]

So about 2 months ago, Cooper started barking to alert us. He started barking at the neighbors grill and he barks at the people in their own yard and won't shut up. Its sort of a how/bark, high pitched and he "points" and his tail goes up. I'm hoping its a fear stage and he'll grow out of it. I just printed something off on the printer and he heard it start and started growling, I told him no and then he flew off the couch barking in that direction. He will even bark if he's in the car with us and we pass someone walking or another dog. Its embarrassing and loud! please tell me he'll grow out of this. He does it mostly in places he thinks are "his".

 

[afauth]

bumping up cuz i want to see if anyone has some advice

 

[Oaklys Dad]

LOL... I will let you know when we get there. My guys are three and four years old and still get notification when the neighbor leaves his house, when the mail arrives and when the school bus stops out front. I really have no advise for you. Sometimes my guys will fall for me saying " Thanks for the warning" and shut the heck up.

 

[Jo Ellen]

How old is Cooper? He'll probably bark less as he becomes more familiar and comfortable with things .... things become less new, he becomes more confident.

I want to caution you to not try to eliminate the alarm-type bark altogether. This could be very useful to you someday, it may just save your life, you never know

Whenever Daisy does this type of bark, I tend to whatever's going on and I thank her. That usually settles her. But she's quite a bit older and she's always been a very easy dog, this may or may not work for you.

Daisy always barks at other dogs when she's in the car too. Trying to settle her then doesn't work very well. But it doesn't happen very often, we just deal with it.

 

[Clhoie]

when my cooper was 8 weeks old, i started right away teaching him commands that i REALLLY wanted to stick through out! "Quiet" was one of them! One of the things about my parents dogs were that they barked... ALOT and nothing they would do would quiet them, and i never wanted to resort to barking collars.
Every time he barked i would say 'quiet', every time. and it works. Hes pretty quiet pup, unless me and my daughter are wrestling around on the floor, then he gets wound up. I just say quiet and he stops. its really refreshing! Maybe its not to late to teach your cooper ?

 

[usmcmueller]

I must be in the few because Moose doesn't bark unless it's something that shouldn't be there. We went on a walk and a neighbor put out a santa cut out, he caught it out of the corner of his eye and barked a couple of deep barks and let it be. He just sits on his ottoman and looks out the window and just watches.

 

[Agent099]

My Dakota barks at everything as well (she just turned a year in September). A leaf can fall out of a tree and she barks at it. Some of it is fear barking... we didn't get her until she was 4 months old and I'm not sure what her life was like before then. She seems to quiet down quicker when I just let her get it out of her system (as annoying as that is to me!). If I chastise her, she continues to bark.

 

[afauth]

Well thanks all! Hopefully when we get some trees out back things will get better. He sits in our backyard and barks at the people in THEIR house walking around. It's fine if he wants to alert us but when I tell him ENOUGH or QUIET I want him to stop. He seems to ignore me when he's really fixated on something. If I've checked it out and tell him its ok, then he needs to stop when I say so. We've taught him "whisper" which he does well but only with a treat in our hands. I'll be glad to get him back in some more training after the holidays. He's 8 (8 1/2) months old.

 

[Mighty Casey and Samson's Mom]

Hmmm...I would love it if Casey (or any golden I've ever had!) would bark to let me know that someone was coming up the driveway!! My only clue is often his frantically searching for something to put in his mouth to present them with!! They are not particularly known as "watchdogs".