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i’m dealing with an odd training limitation with my dog and would appreciate some ideas. my dog usually barks at noises in the stairwell of my apartment building (footsteps, doors closing, people talking, keys, etc). it looks like alert barking. the catch is that he only reacts when the sounds are actually happening outside in the hallway. if i try to recreate the situation by knocking on my own door, making sounds, or playing door or hallway noise recordings, he doesn’t respond at all. same thing if someone tries to stage it without there being real hallway activity. it’s like he immediately recognizes it’s not authentic. another wrinkle is that he doesn’t always react. sometimes he’ll hear the same kind of noise and just keep resting and ignore it completely. what i’ve been trying so far: when he hears a noise and runs to the door, i start giving him treats before he starts barking and keep feeding until the noise stops. if he hears a noise but stays resting, i also give treats for that. most of the time this works fine, but occasionally he’ll get very locked in on the door and won’t take treats at all. the problem i’m running into is that the triggers are random and i can’t reliably reproduce them, which makes structured counterconditioning or desensitization hard to do. has anyone dealt with hallway or stairwell alert barking specifically? how did you approach training when the trigger only happens naturally and inconsistently?

Hello trainers/behaviorists… Very long…sorry! We have 5 dogs. 4 girls, 1 boy. All are altered and have never have puppies. They are the following (oldest to youngest):

Tilly – border collie/pit mix – almost 8 years, 56 pounds

Leeloo- Shepard mix -7 years old, 46 pounds

Korben (only boy)- Lab/St Bernard mix – 7 years, 110 pounds

Dru – Doberman – 5.5 years, 68 pounds

June – blue heeler/staffie mix – almost 5, 75 pounds

All were puppies when we got them. The first 4 years of Tilly and Leeloo they were best friends. No issues. In the last 3 years they’ve gotten into approximately 6 fights. After the last fight, we put both of them on fluoxetine. The last 18 months they’ve had zero issues. We do keep them apart if they aren’t actively being watched. We have never found a trigger. Not food. Neither care about toys. Leeloo is a snuggle girl to us while Tilly is the most cat like dog ever. She likes attention when she wants it and then when she’s done she leaves. They all go on about a 3.5 mile walk almost every single day.

Two nights ago we were hanging out watching TV. They’d already had dinner about an hour prior. All of a sudden it looks like Leeloo and June are getting into it, but they are just vocalizing/hitting, no biting. My husband yells and they separate but then Tilly comes flying in and attacks Leeloo. It took several of us to get them apart and my husband had to almost choke out Tilly to get her to let go. I was holding Leeloo’s head, so she didn’t get Tilly, but Tilly got her in her chest. Several staples to close them up. My husband thinks from his vantage point on the couch that Leeloo was setting off/going towards Tilly and that June jumped in to diffuse it. We have seen June do similar when they are playing, if she thinks they are getting too into it she’ll use her body to separate them. However, even then when my husband yelled, June and Leeloo both immediately stopped but then Tilly still went after Leeloo.

Tilly has done this before. The last big fight they had, June and Dru were “fighting” (vocalizing, no biting) over a toy. We yelled, they immediately broke up and then Tilly came in and attacked Leeloo who wasn’t involved at all.

We are currently deciding what to do and in the mean time we are keeping all 3 of them separate from each other and rotating them through the house. My questions are:

1. Is that a thing with dogs, breaking up or getting in between to try to stop something?

2. If it is, how do we know that’s what June was doing? If she was, is it ok for her to be around the other ones? She immediately stopped and left when my husband yelled and I think if Tilly didn’t attack Leeloo, that would’ve been the end of it.

The other thing is, when these happen, once we get them apart, it’s like it’s totally over for them. What I mean by that is that I would literally bet any amount and be really confident that I could put Tilly and Leeloo in a room alone right now and they would be fine. They are all confused as to why they are all apart now.

If there’s any info you want that I didn’t share, just ask! I’m happy to answer all questions.

my dog who is 2 is only chewing on my moms shoes. its like he targets her lol, they could be her house slippers or shoes she hasn't worn in months but he'll find them and chew on them, and only hers. he doesn't chew on anything else in the house, besides the shoes. so I'm just wondering if anyone would know why? If she was his person i would maybe understand lol, but they both barely interact with each other so I'm a little confused. he also has chew toys, but still chooses the shoes

Hi all. I have a client with 2 dogs and we’re working on not jumping when someone comes in. The small dog (Dog A) gets excited/jumps, and the big dog (Dog B) starts herding the small guy away. We have eliminated jumping for Dog A, but Dog B still sees him getting excited and herds regardless. I’m kind of stuck on what to do. Any suggestions would be great!

So I have two dogs, a black mouth cur (6 years) and a pitbull mut (3 years). My pit normally is very submissive even when only with his big brother at home. I recently moved in with my girlfriend and have introduced them to her 3 dogs. She has three little nuggets all older between 8-12 years old I’m not totally sure the breeds. As I have brought them together more and more they seem to be getting along better and they have no real aggressive behavior towards eachother and my older dog… the black mouth cur has 0 issues. However my pitbull mut who could Toss them like rag dolls is EXTREMELY scared at all times, to the point where he is shaking in fear around her dogs at points when their is a little commotion. I know dogs have their own hierarchy within a pack and what not but I am started to get nervous that it’s not healthy for him to be there. Basically I feel like her three dogs have been bullying him and they refuse to play with him. Any advice?

Hey so I have a smaller dog who is 6lbs and elderly. He’s the best. We have adopted a 40ish lb dog who is wonderful. Whats a good way to train her to stay out of my face to stop gently stepping all over my smaller dog when I bend to give my smaller dog affection? She’s getting in my face to get affection too. I’ve tried freezing and waiting her out. Should I just do that? And I cover my small dog to protect him

Adopted a dog from a shelter about 2.5 months ago. Was advertised as a 2yo great pyr/lab mix but I’m thinking he’s a golden/shepard mix. He’s not super into playing, but he has some toys he likes to shake around. He will stop playing with a toy to grab a pillow or blanket from the couch and “play” (bite) with that instead, and not give it up. We have tried ignoring him and/or walking out of the room, and that works in the moment, but doesn’t stop the behavior from occurring. I am also working on the relaxation protocol with him. I can’t tell if it’s attention seeking behavior, but giving him attention at appropriate times doesn’t seem to help prevent it either (rewarding when calm). Is it him just learning what’s acceptable behavior in our home/testing limits?

Any ideas on how I should handle ? Thank you