Barking when leaving the room?

[Leanne]

Due to being at school with me every day, Mas is rarely left alone.. if he is it’s a matter of 30 seconds when I grab something from the photocopier.

However since we have been off this week he is barking up a storm whenever I leave him.... even if it’s to go to the toilet!

I’m not entering the room when he does it, I wait for him to be quiet.. I had to take my son out today for an hour and so did a big walk and a kong etc and it doesn’t appeared he barked whilst I was gone...

But then he’s sound asleep and I run upstairs to put some washing on and in the 3 minutes I was gone he’s barking and howling again... I walk in and he literally walks straight back to his bed and goes back to sleep

Is this a phase? Should I be doing something more proactive?

He’s fine at night usually (now!) and rarely barks so it’s not like he can’t be alone?

I don’t really want to give him a kong etc just to run upstairs or go for a wee!

Should I be treating when I return or not?

I should add it’s even when someone else is in the room with him.. it’s purely related to me and he also barks at work if I have to go somewhere and leave him.. if I leave him with a chew he’s usually ok for 10 minutes but I can’t leave the room or go out of sight unplanned at all?

 

[Jacqui-S]

So when you PLAN to leave him he gets some kind of treat?
Might it help to "give him a job" when you are leaving him. Maybe like tell him to go to his bed for a stay?
Just a thought. It lets him know you are paying him attention?

 

[SteffiS]

Toffee is really bad for this if I go out of the room with Ripple, even if it's just to take him for a wee. I think it's a case of 'I'm missing out on something'. I'd certainly like this to stop but I appreciate he is much younger than Mas.

The relaxation protocol has helped a lot with me popping out of the room on my own for a few minutes. I'm so used to Mr Independent Ripple, who doesn't even bother to say hello when I've been out for a couple of hours, that I'm still finding adjusting to a more needy (and loving) pup, quite difficult.

 

[Leanne]

So when you PLAN to leave him he gets some kind of treat?
Might it help to "give him a job" when you are leaving him. Maybe like tell him to go to his bed for a stay?
Just a thought. It lets him know you are paying him attention?

I think his brain has to be occupied? He can do the relaxation protocol because he has a job to do but if I just get up and walk out he’s like woahhh me come, me come.

I don’t THINK it’s anxiety.. he seems calm enough when I come back in, he’s not jumping all over me etc - it almost seems to be a not wanting to miss out!

 

[snowbunny]

You got yourself a FOMO dog - join the club

You just have to build up duration, starting from going out of the room and back in. Sometimes giving a job to do can prompt what I call "work mode" and the dog doesn't generalise that over to when he's not "working".

 

[Leanne]

@Boogie I just left the room to go to the loo and told him to wait.

No barking.

Bloody weird arse dog.

It never occurred to me to give him a command. Thinking about it the relaxation protocol is a command..

@snowbunny how would I do that? Increments of 10 seconds? 1 minute? I’m worried I’m going to be confusing him by still having to leave the room when I’m not actively training it... should I give a treat on return if no barking? But then doesn’t that teach him to sit waiting for the return as opposed to relaxing?

 

[snowbunny]

First, a little pedantry. It’s “cue”, not “command”. There’s a difference, and it’s not just semantics
Here, we all use cues.

So, yes, within the relaxation protocol, the whole situation is part of the cue, even though you’re not giving verbal cues.
My issue with giving a cue is that your dog is going to end up breaking, so you’re damaging the value of it, unless your cue is essentially meaningless anyway. So, what does “wait” actually mean to your dog? What have you trained it to mean? What behaviour should he perform when you give him the cue? What tells the dog he no longer has to continue with that behaviour? If you can’t answer these questions, you might as well be saying “pineapple” for all it means

I would suggest that what you’re ultimately after isn’t that you give him a cue and he performs a behaviour that lasts the duration of your absence, but rather that your leaving becomes a non-event. This means the focus goes from operant conditioning (if the dog does X behaviour, he earns a reward) to habituation - that is, the dog gets used to something because it’s part of everyday life. In which case, you’d just do what you normally do, get up and make a cup of tea, go to the toilet, whatever, without any fuss, and the dog gets used to it because it’s normal. Of course, you don’t want to distress the dog or set him up so that he ends up rehearsing undesirable behaviours, so you can use some tactics to start with that make it easier for you both during the first steps.

1. Train a calm marker. This is a marker word which means “I like what you’re doing; don’t move, the treat is coming to you.”.
2. Once you have your calm marker, which doesn’t take long to train, you can use it to capture calmness without losing it. When you see him chilling out, give your calm marker and deliver a (low value) treat. Because you’ve taught him that it’s not something to break for, he should stay in his relaxed position without popping up.
3. Build a strong reinforcement history on a particular bed. Make that bed so rewarding to be on that he gravitates towards it whenever he enters the room. This is easy; lure him into it, feed him ten treats in place, then give a release word and throw a treat off the bed. Repeat. After a few goes, he should be hopping back into the bed without the lure immediately he’s eaten the release treat. Practice this for one minute, five times a day and he will soon want to be on that bed whenever he can. Combine it with your calm marker, so you are reinforcing that word meaning stay in place. Remember to use a different word for your release.
4. Once he really wants to be on his bed, you can start adding a bit of distance and duration. I did this by, for example, walking into the kitchen and filling the kettle, coming back in, giving my calm marker and treating. Going back to the kitchen, getting out the mug, back and marking. Kitchen -> make the coffee, mark.
Because he loves being on his bed, you don’t have to cue him onto it, and he should be secure enough staying there for very short periods without you. In very little time, you should be able to start joining up these parts of activities into their wholes.

You want to avoid making a fuss of him when you go back to him; just use your calm marker and give him a treat. You see, you’re not thinking about cueing the behaviour “go to your bed” and then building up duration of that, because that is flawed; when you leave the house for two hours, say, you can’t expect him to stay on his bed for that amount of time, so if you were to cue it, you’re setting up conflict and frustration - icky feelings associated with the cue, the bed, and you being away.
Instead, you’re just making the bed an amazing place to be so he wants to be on it, he’s comfortable being there. And the calm marker you’ve trained allows you to continue to reinforce him being there without him losing his calmness, so he continues to remain on it without frustration or conflict. If he pops off the bed while you go to make your coffee, he’s not broken any cue, he’s just telling you that you’ve not paid into the bed enough. Lure him back onto it and start paying in again very heavily, with the occasional release that shows you both how much he wants to get back on.
This means that when you do eventually start leaving him for longer times, he’s free to move about because he’s not been told to stay on his bed, and won’t have the conflict of having to break a cue. But, he’ll probably choose his bed for most of the time anyway because it has such good feelings associated with it.

I hope that makes sense!

 

[snowbunny]

Oh, and think of the barking as information. It means you asked too much, too soon. Pay into that bed some more; the more you put into the very early stages, the faster you’ll be able to move on later. Make him really, really, really want to get on that bed! If you stand between him and the bed, he should be trying to get around you to get on it

 

[Leanne]

@snowbunny i actually love you a little bit..

That all makes perfect sense.

The calm marker... is that not a cue that will be broken though? So for example right now he’s dozing on his bed (he will go to bed on ‘cue’) so would I say ‘good calm’ and treat it?

 

[Leanne]

Oh and wait (we have had this discussion before) means stay where you are till I come back to you) he has a pretty strong wait. I know you prefer to give the original cue of sit etc but because he’s in school he has lots of children who give him cues and frankly it’s easier for me as that’s one that no one uses

 

[snowbunny]

A calm marker is like a click - it tells the dog you like the thing he’s doing, and that’s what is earning him the reinforcement he’s about to get. The importance of using a distinct word is that, you’re perfectly correct, a marker is actually a cue because it defines what the dog does next. Does he stay in place to get his reinforcer? Does he come to you? Does he chase it? So the calm marker (mine is “good”, but I think “calm” is a good one as it reminds you what you’re doing) lets him know that the reinforcement is on the way and to stay in place. Once the reinforcement has been delivered, the marker/cue is no longer in effect, so he should just carry on doing what he was before. Again, that’s something that you train first. A good way to start is by simply having him sit in front of you and keep saying “calm” and feeding him, rapid-fire style. You can then progress this to slowly moving the treat towards his nose, at a distance where he’s not reaching for it, mark while he’s still still and then quickly move the treat to his mouth. Over time, you’ll be able to reduce the distance between his nose and the treat with him not reaching for it; the idea being that you can bring it close to him and he won’t move towards it, then you give your marker and pop it in his mouth. If you’re happy to use negative punishment (as most people are), you can move the treat back if he does reach towards it.
Then, you’d start playing around with the difference between your calm marker and a marker that means he can get the food (eg ”get”). Get a bowl, put it between you on the floor and pop a treat in it. If you say “calm”, you take it out of the bowl and it comes to him, if you say “get”, he can take it from the bowl himself. This is all just teaching him that “calm” marks whatever he is doing, and the reinforcement is coming to him.
If, for whatever reason, he does break between you giving your calm marker and the reinforcement, you still have to pay up (because your marker is a promise), but use the treat to lure him back into place and feed in place. Then think about why he broke and how you can address that.

 

[snowbunny]

Oh and wait (we have had this discussion before) means stay where you are till I come back to you) he has a pretty strong wait. I know you prefer to give the original cue of sit etc but because he’s in school he has lots of children who give him cues and frankly it’s easier for me as that’s one that no one uses

Ok, so the decision on whether to use wait/stay or not in terms of a sit-stay etc wasn’t the reason I asked in this case. It’s because you need to know what your cue means; if you don’t, then your dog can’t be expected to

What I mean is, if you tell Mas to wait, does that mean he has to stay in the position he’s currently in until you release him from it? If so, you can see how that’s not possible for extended durations, and how it will create uncertainty and conflict in him, not to mention it will weaken your cue.

If that’s not what it means, what does it mean? What is your definition of “wait”? How does he know when the wait has come to an end?

Dogs are really (really) forgiving when it comes to our vagueness, and go out of their way to try to work out what we mean, but it’s good practice to try to ensure that we understand exactly what we mean with our cues ourselves, so we can communicate that to them.
I’m the worst for this, so it’s very much a “do as I say, not as I do”

 

[Leanne]

@snowbunny reinforcement of the bed is working really well this morning. I wouldn’t say he’s calm but he’s pretty bloody happy to be in there

Still very alert and waiting for the treat but is choosing to go in there (using the crate) the low level woof is appearing which seems to be his way of demanding his treat (I’m ignoring that and rewarding when he’s settled)

 

[snowbunny]

At this stage, just concentrate on making the bed amazing. So what you want to do is lure him into the bed, give him ten treats, one after the other, then release him with an "OK" (or whatever you want to use) and throw a treat out. Repeat this five times. Finish on the release, say "All done", show your hands are empty and walk away. All you're doing now is conditioning him to love his bed, nothing else

 

[Leanne]

Ok so what do you do when you have done that and then he sits on his bed and barks at you for a treat

 

[Leanne]

Lol he’s now stomped off and gone to sleep by the window

 

[snowbunny]

He'll learn that once you've said "All done", the training session is ended and there is no more opportunity to earn reinforcement. Be consistent with this whenever you're finishing training anything. Another thing you can do at the end of your training session is to scatter a few treats on the floor for him to snuffle out. This helps give a natural end, too. I have to do this with Willow because I keep her sessions for cooperative care super short (one minute) and she's desperate to continue, so she just stands there, willing me to do something else

This is a little video I took of a session at the beginning working on the calm marker ("good" in my case) and the difference between that and "get it". This is something you can work on alongside the "your bed is awesome" training.

PS, I used negative punishment here by moving the treat away when she moved, which I would rather not have done, but hadn't thought it through enough to do without it.

 

[Boogie]

Spencer has taken to barking when he wants something. I turn my back and ignore him or walk away if he persists. Awkward in a cafe if he’s seen a crumb on the floor

 

[Leanne]

Look who put himself to bed in his crate with the door open

He has never done that!!!!