# Pup barks house down when left downstairs



## LadyofShallott (Jul 5, 2011)

Hi there, new here, and I wondered if anyone might have some advice.

Weve got a 14 week old female labradoodle pup. We are getting on very well with her, apart from one thing: she will bark the house down when were upstairs and she is left downstairs. 

At the moment, as were not quite there with the houstraining yet (she can go for days without any accidents, and then suddenly wee on the floor several times a day, despite just having been outside but thats another matter), I sleep downstairs with her so that I can get her outside in the garden once or twice a night. However, as soon as I go upstairs in the morning, to wake our baby/shower/dress etc , she will start barking, and not stop until we get back downstairs with her again. We rise early, due to the baby, and my partners long commute to work, which means our neighbours on both sides (we live in a terraced house) gets regaled with furious barking from about 6 am each morning. They have both quite rightly complained about it, which is making things stressful for us.

How can I get her to stop? Part of the problem is that the very moment she hears us on the stairs she will shut up, meaning that she never barks when were right there in front of her, making it difficult to sort of catch her at it and try and modify the behavior that way (with my past dogs, if they've barked I've taught them to stop when I say "quiet" by popping a treat in their mouth while saying "quiet" the second they stopped barking - this won't work here). Before I go upstairs each morning I take her out to do her business and then give her a Kong with some healthy treats, but this seem to have no effect. I work from home, and so am always there, so shes never left alone for long periods. When I do have to go out for a couple hours she will bark for a couple of minutes and then settle down  the problem is only when were in a different part of the house to her. It also causes problems when I try to put our baby down for her naps, as the pup will sit downstairs and bark at the top of her voice, meaning our daughter have difficulties settling. I also worry what she will be like when she is finally completely housetrained and I move back to sleep upstairs. Not to mention the complaining neighbours. 

Any advice at all? At the moment we completely ignore her behavior  i.e dont give her any attention at all when she barks downstairs, we dont go to her, shout at her etc. That doesnt seem to work, nor does it work to give her a Kong.

Help! :smile:


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## bird (Apr 2, 2009)

Hi, firstly the house training will click, in some ways pups are no different than potty training children, some take to it quicker than others. 
Have a read of this thread, its one of the stickys at the top of this section. 
This may have some clues to help with the barking.

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/112552-how-help-dog-separation-anxiety.html

Maybe it would be best if you knocked on your neighbours doors and explained that you have a new pup, and ask for their patience while you deal with the issues.


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## anita a (Jun 17, 2011)

good luck with this, our 11 week old pup will settle at night and when i/we go out but if i'm upstaris bathing the kids/doing housework etc he woofs at the stair gate and whines like crazy - i'm just ignoring him but when you are trying to get the kids to sleep it really is annoying and does not help with their routine/schedule at all


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## Emraa (Jun 4, 2009)

We have a 10 week old Lab x pup and she behaves in a similar way. She screams (and I mean SCREAMS) the place down (we also live in a terraced house) and gets herself in a right state. We started leaving her for a few minutes then coming back into the room (but completely ignoring her) and extended the time we were away slowly but it made no difference, as soon as we are out of sight she kicks off, it makes no difference if she can hear our voices.
A few days ago I left her in her crate in front of the TV and she was a quiet as a mouse! I think maybe it has something to do with movement - maybe she thinks there is someone in the room with her? She was alone (well, my other dog was in the room with her) for over an hour, I kept peeking to see if she was ok and she was snoozing  
This may have been a fluke but I really hope not, it can be really stressful can' it?


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## grandad (Apr 14, 2011)

Give her a frozen kong everytime you leave the room, take it off her when you return and put it back in the freezer. Let her sniff it, roll it, so she has to chase it, whilst she chases it. Leave the room. Make a game of it. 
I must also add that you are making a rod for your own back, with your lifestyle with her. If you pander to her neediness, it will only get worse rather than better. You reallly do need to train her to be on her own. And this means small increments of time alone. 
Does she bark when you go outside and leave her alone? If she doesn't then that's a start point. But inside, you need to leave her, stand on the other side of the door for a second and then return and then increase the time from seconds to minutes to hours. And be nonchallant about it.


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## springfieldbean (Sep 13, 2010)

anita a said:


> good luck with this, our 11 week old pup will settle at night and when i/we go out but if i'm upstaris bathing the kids/doing housework etc he woofs at the stair gate and whines like crazy - i'm just ignoring him but when you are trying to get the kids to sleep it really is annoying and does not help with their routine/schedule at all


Our 11 week old cocker spaniel is similar - he's ok at night in his crate next to our bed (but only after I've settled him and we go to bed at the same time) and on the couple of occasions we've had to go out and leave him alone in his crate during the day he has stopped barking by the time we returned less than an hour later, but if he's ever left in a room by himself and we're in he just barks and barks. We're in a flat, so it's causing problems.

We try the leaving him alone for a second, then two, etc, but he still barks as soon as we leave - it hasn't improved at all over the 3 weeks we've had him, repeating this throughout the day. Distractions like treat filled frozen kongs have no effect - he's not interested in them unless we're there.

I'm hoping things will improve naturally as he gets older, but at the moment we just can't leave him alone for longer than a few seconds.


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## anita a (Jun 17, 2011)

dexter sleeps in the kitchen on his own - always has done and is not crated (we have a stair gate across the arch to the kitchen)
luckily we are detached so i don't have my neighbours to worry about thankfully as one side are really rather unplesant (they dont' like us at all  )


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