Our puppy has always been allowed on the couch to look out the window from the moment he was tall enough to safely get on and off. It is his favorite spot and he likes watching people. We have a primary school in our street, so in the morning and afternoon we have a lot of children passing by, the mailman comes from time to time, people walk their dogs, we had construction workers working on the street for 2 months and none of this has ever been a problem.
However, our pup is now an adolescent (almost 9 months) and since a week or so, he started barking, sometimes very loudly. It is never really clear to me what sets off his barking. On a leash, he can be very reactive to other dogs, but when I go to look out the window I don't always see a dog. Sometimes there is really nothing to see, but he goes on for minutes. He is a cockapoo, so a mix of two hunting breeds and he might be seeing animals on the street I am missing (cats, martens, mice). He doesn't usually bark at pigeons or other birds in our backyard.
The problem is that he is so used to sitting there during the day, that it is impossible to keep him away from the window all of a sudden. I have also read that reprimanding dogs for barking will lead to them giving no warning signals anymore in real threatening situations.
So my question is whether there is any way to prevent this behavior without keeping him away from the window or whether I should just try to put up with it the best I can?
submitted by /u/DistraughtDogMom
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