Barking when no one is home

[TulipRoxy]

I have a 5 year old sheltie, Tulip, and she barks sometimes when we are not home. She also barks when we are here, but only once or twice as we can calm her down and she will stop. Her barking is triggered by hearing sounds in the building, like other dogs barking, people running around on the floor above us, etc. We live on the second floor of a walk up, and a bunch of people in the building have dogs, but I just don't want her to cause any problems

The problem is that when we are not there there is no way for us to control her barking. We received a complaint that she barked for half an hour last night. We have tried citronella collars, which don' work on her as the spray gets lost in her ruff and never reaches her nose. I was thinking of trying an ultrasonic bark control device. Does anyone have experience with this kind of device. I have heard they work for some dogs and not for others, but I figured its worth a try.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[kandy]

I have a dog door, and live in a single family home - but I also have a problem with my dogs barking when I'm not home. Particulary with one neighbor who happens to hate dogs - and of course my dogs feel the same way about her, so they bark at her constantly. Consequently, the dog door is only unlocked when I am home. I do find it hilarious though that she lives in the middle of a whole block full of dogs, any number of who are barking at any given time and any new people coming into the neighborhood just seem to bring more and more dogs. Gotta love seeing Karma in action.

Anyway, have you tried confining her to the room furthest from the potential noise, and leaving a radio or tv on to create background noise?

I don't have any experience with the electronic bark deterrants - but if you've got other animals in the home, I know that it will bother them as much as it is supposed to bother the one barking.