I have a 20 month old border collee/blue healer/ lab/ ??? mix. He is 85 pounds, and turned into a wonderful dog overall. He has, however, developed a problem I really need to break him of.
I like the fact he is protective, and I like the fact he warns me when someone comes to the house But I would gladly give up his barking warning, for silence. I know you can't have the best of both worlds when it comes to a barking dog, so if I had to choose it would be to quiet him down.
Delivery trucks are the worst. He hears a diesel engine and starts barking right away. Bad news is our nextdoor neighbor has a diesel and overtime he comes home, the dog barks. He also barks at people working in their yards 3 or more houses down. Basically anything that moves that is in his line of sight causes him to bark.
Now I did switch from a gentle leader to a choker collar, and noticed a difference in his behavior when we go for walks. He walks much more nicely with me now, and is less likely to pull unless he sees another dog. We are working on that, but the choker collar does not appear to do anything for his barking habit. I can correct him, or give him a tap on the butt, nothing appears to work. I use to send him downstairs to his blanket, but now instead of running up to bark, he lays on his blanket and barks when he thinks he hears something.
I suppose it wouldn't be so bad, except my husband works nights, and sleeps during the day. I can't have Bullet barking at every little thing and waking him up every few hours. It's not out of control yet, but I want to stop this before it does get out of hand. Plus, we want to be able to leave him outside while we are gone without him barking at every little thing. Right now we can't afford a bark collar, so is there another way?