Haaaalp! Oh my dog.

I’m sure any of you who have had Springer Spaniels before have experienced the phenomenon where they must bark at anything new and suspicious. From a temporary Box in The Living Room to a permanent New End Table, your springer sees it, marks it as suspicious, and barks at it. Incessantly. No matter how much you coo that it’s okay, you know it’s there, it’s allowed to be there, they are not convinced!

Eventually, your springer accepts the inevitable and welcomes the new item into their domain.

This is like that, only wildly more annoying. Our sweet Rosetta has decided that humans of any kind are suspicious and unwelcome in our neighbor’s yard. They have a pool. It is summer. They had a pool last year, and the year before that. But for some reason, Rosie WILL not stop barking at the fence when there is anyone outside. To her, it is absolutely unacceptable that there be people relaxing in their pool on a hot day. Bark. Bark. Bark.

We’re not sure what to do to stop her barking except put her inside–that is, if we can get her to even remember we exist. We are probably just as annoying as she is, screaming “Rose. Rose. ROSIE. ROSETTA!!!” between each of her barks. We’re losing our voices and our patience, but Rosie is content to bark forever. Should we ask if Rosie can come over and inspect their pool? Should we just leave Rosie inside whenever the neighbors are out? I suspect we need to take some time and sit with her on a leash, rewarding her whenever she pays attention to anything that’s not the neighbors.

I like to think that this would be easy, but in reality, it might take days of doing this, and being consistent with training in the whole household is a challenge we haven’t solved.

Does your dog bark like a maniac at one particular thing? Or have an obsessive behavior? How did you handle it? Asking for a friend….