Before we even found Mr. Atticus, when P. and I were discussing the ramifications of getting a 2nd dog, we had only one true concern: Betty. Since Betty has joined our family she has become our source of light, joy, despair, and always laughter. By getting a 2nd dog we wanted to add companionship to her life, but we weren’t sure that Betty would see it as such. P. was afraid she would get angry and withdrawn, I was afraid she would incessantly bark at the new dog.
The one behavior P. and I have not been able to squash in Betty is her barking. Now, we’re fortunate, she doesn’t bark in the house. However, the moment she stands next to another dog, she barks at them. It’s not aggressive, her tail is wagging the entire time. That doesn’t change the fact that the other dog is completely freaked out by it. The barking really is her own little screaming way of saying hello to another dog. Right in their face. Once she barks hello at that dog, she moves on to her next victim. I’ve asked trainers, dog daycare people, they all say the same thing, “She’s well socialized, she just barks. It’s fine.” I can tell you right now it doesn’t feel fine at the dog park, but whatever, we move on.
So, we decided that if we got a 2nd dog one of two things would happen. A) After being with a dog all day Betty would realize that there is nothing to bark at, therefore barks far less; or B) teaches the new dog to bark at everything that moves. We decided to throw caution to the wind and get another dog anyways.
On our first meeting with Attie, we brought Betty. We new we would have to weed out the dogs who could not handle her barking. The moment the Rescue people brought Attie out, Betty did her worst. She went right up to his neck and barked. Barked all around his backside. Came in front of him and barked. You know what Attie did? Nothing. He looked at her, looked at us, and walked right around her and came over to me. That my friends, is how we knew Attie was for us.
Before Attie came home, I decided to do a little research on quelling dog barking. I didn’t want to get a shock collar or a citronella collar. I just knew that they wouldn’t work for Betty. Since I do teach special needs children, I actually remembered hearing about a Level 4 intervention for Autistic children in tantrums, where you spray water on them. The water doesn’t hurt them and it distracts them from their tantrum. Betty hates water that is not found in a park. She positively recoils from the sight of the bath tub. I figured if it worked for autistic kids, it might work for my nutso dog.
When Attie came home, Betty proceed to bark at him again. All it took was 3 good squirts of the water bottle to have Betty realize that barking at Attie is not okay. We haven’t heard a peep from her since.
From then on, Betty and Attie have been great friends. Last night they even slept on the same bed for awhile.
Aren’t they cute? I think things are going to work out just fine…..
Maybe we should try the water thing with our barky dogs… hmmm….
I think that the water bottle will only work if your dog doesn’t like water. Give it a try lady, what’s the worst that could happen? Good luck!