Dog Barking (kinda long)

Hexslinger

Three weeks ago, a dog randomly joined us on one of our walks on the weekend. No one claimed him so we decided to take him in. Atlas is super sweet. We think he's been an outdoor dog his whole life (2-3 years old), so we've been working on a lot of training with a trainer. 

 So far, the only problem we've had is that when we put him outside, he will randomly start barking at nothing, the kids next door playing basketball, neighbors going outside to relax,... He won't replicate this behavior when we're outside, so it's really hard to not reinforce the behavior by us going outside to stop him. We've tried citronella collards, standard bark collars, and now we're on a remote controlled collar set on the beep setting. The beeping seems to annoy him enough to stop for a moment, but he'll start right back up again and ignore it after a while. 

 Like I said, we're working with a trainer, but we're still on the very basics, like name recognition!

Any recommendations on what we might be able to do to discourage this kind of barking? 

nital

The easy solution is to just not give him the opportunity and supercise him when hes outside.  This will also protect both your yard and your pup.  And your relationship with your neighbors.

River Pestie

Have you tried "eh eh" when he is barking? If so, what does he do when you do it?

andreamartinets

Dogs bark - Especially if he has been outside his whole life, this is going to be a difficult thing to train them out of. The best thing to do is train him "no" and when he starts barking giving him the command - then praising him when he is quiet. I don't think you will actually be able to prevent him from barking.

smpeachey

So its a long shot but this device worked for me and my dog she only barked while we were out of the house annoying our condo neighbor, and then my coworker got one for his three dogs who were barking at new dogs over the fence.It stopped the barking on both sides of the fence, they would still whine/whimper a bit but it really helped.

 http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12281454&f=PAD/psNotAvailInUS/No

 When we bought ours we were assured by Petsmart we could return it if it didn't work.

Also we only leave it on when we need it so she doesn't get used to the sound and start ignoring it. I swear it cured her separation anxiety related barking and really helped her be less anxious when we were out.

I have a hard time letting a device do the training for me but when the behavior only exists away from your presence I was at a loss as to what to do...