We adopted our new girl, Yenta, from the Humane Society, but besides a three month stay with an 82 year old woman, we don't have much of Yentas history. We can tell she was well socialized (she is the nicest, calmest dog I have ever seen), and we can tell she must have spent at least a little time in a crate, because she is not afraid to enter hers.
Here is our problem, she can not be left alone in the house when we are gone. Since I work from home, that isn't a huge problem, but on a few occasions we have had to leave for a few hours. When we get home, we can tell she must have been stressed the whole time. Her crate is covered in slobber, and she is just "mad" at us for leaving her. What do you, or others suggest? Is there a way to get her used to being left alone? As long as we know she is safe, should we just not worry about it, and leave her in her crate? At night she sleeps in my room with us (not on the bed), should we consider just crating her at night? For the past few days we have just been feeding her in her crate, with the door open, and praising her when she enters it. "Good Girl, Yenta, you are in your bed", etc.
Another problem. This may seem a silly question, but how do you consistently stop a dog from barking? When she goes outside (we live in a very rural area, so there is lots of "outside noises", she barks non stop! There are other dogs in the area that also bark, so she hears them and joins in. My husband works nights, and sleeps during the days, so for us that is not an option. Since she rarely barks inside, or when we stay outside with her, how do we stop it? It is really hard to stop her from doing something that is so natural, when we are not standing next to her. Again, she doesn't bark when we are out with her.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
One of my dogs is silent as a fish, the other is a barker. We use a bark collar, either the automatic kind or just put the training collar on her and zap her with a "Quiet!" when she barks. But of course you WANT her to bark at strangers . . . so you want her to be quiet only when you ask her to.