New owner of 2 year old breeder’s dog

[lizsings77]

Hi…we recently adopted a 2 year old unspayed female from a friend who is a breeder. She had some sudden family health issues that required her to find homes for her 3 dogs as they may need to relocate to take care of family. She had only had our dog for a month & had bought her from another breeder.
Our Brandy is a wonderful dog & has adapted to living with us well. We are retired seniors living in SW Florida. Our only issue is she seems to never have been socialized as she barks and barks and barks at anyone who enters our house. She particularly seems to be afraid of/aggressive towards men. Because we live with our doors open her barking is a concern for our neighbors and we can’t get her to stop no matter what we do. Can anyone advise a good course of action? We have a large family with people popping in all the time or coming for vacation stays. The only time she is quiet is when we’re alone at home.
I should add that we have had dogs our whole 55 years of marriage, but never a Cavalier. Mostly Labs & mutts.

 

[Karlin]

Hi and welcome! How lovely to have your new adopted girl.

It's really hard to know why she barks -- in part it may be all the recent changes and moving about if she had only recently gone from one breeder to another and then to you. Keep ion mind that generally it takes a couple of months for a dog to settle into a new home. It could be too, where she was kept -- perhaps she was a kennel dog before? Or perhaps part of a barky group or family -- I have a boy, Gus, whose mother and siblings are all barkers though he doesn't do this all the time. I don't think it likely to be an obsessive compulsive (and hence medical) issue -- see https://www.petmd.com/dog/behavior/evr_dog_behavior_compulsive_disorder -- because she is mostly quiet with you.

Because of that, I think you'll need to view this as both a management and training issue, keeping in mind she may well have more going on than she can manage with all the recent shifts in homes and that she may not have had this level of constant activity, which could be overwhelming for her (and the relief valve for her, is barking, which is normal). She sounds overexcited by all the visitors -- does she settle once they're there or keep barking?

There are many, many positive routes you can take. Does she have somewhere she can retreat that is quiet, like a crate set up as a den for her? Can she go to a quiet room where windows and doors are closed? Have you trained her to keep busy and enjoy a stuffed Kong or other hollow stuffable toy? Have you worked yet with a good trainer?

I'd suggest engaging a trainer who can assess her in her home environment and give you some strategies for both management and training. I'd recommend using a CCPDT-certified trainer as these have a proper qualification, and are not just self-appointed amateur trainers. They also all use positive methods and never outdated and discredited punishment approaches, which can be particularly damaging for cavaliers with their kind and affectionate personalities. If you go here and click on 'find a trainer' you can put in your zip code and get recommendations for CCPDT trainers near you: https://www.ccpdt.org/. Hope that helps!!