i have had my rescue dog for about five months now, and, despite all my best efforts, I cannot curb her barking. It seems to be borne out of restlessness? She really struggles to exist as herself. If I am not interacting with her, she is sleeping. Which would be fine if I knew why she was barking at me, but it is a struggle to interpret what she wants!
I genuinely could not tell you what her barking it is about most of the time. She has food, water, went to the bathroom, I try to give her attention/play- none of these things help. So, I thought maybe she was under-stimulated, so I have taken her on sniffing walks, done inside mental stimulation with sniffing, played tug with her, etc etc. That does not help, and half the time, only seems to rile her up more.
Then I thought it was maybe an attention thing (even though she does not seem to really want attention when she barks?) so I tried reverse time outs, regular time outs, ignoring her (all at different times and for at least two consistent weeks per method)
Throughout all of this, I have been trying to practice the rewarding calm techniques, to try and encourage her to relax. This has done very little. She sleeps a bit more I think, but when she is awake and running, it’s right back to the same old barking at me and my partner for an unidentifiable need. To try and figure out what she wants, we started using button communication. This curbed some of the barking, but I think it was the novelty of the buttons that distracted her, because she has caught on to the buttons and their meaning but the barking had ramped back up again as the buttons became routine.
Any and all help is appreciated. I am really trying to avoid any aversive measures but I am struggling to find a method of curbing this behavior!!! I hate being frustrated at her, because it’s not her fault, but the barking is incessant and I feel like I have tried so much.