Herc likes to bark and growl at anything in the yard that he considers out of the ordinary. I've already acclimated him to my one neighbor and wife since they're outside a lot. We did introductions on leash in the front of the house on numerious occassions and these neighbors were willing particpants (the guy is a big dog lover). They've pet him through the fence, after many on leash introductions, while I was outside supervising as well. Now when the neighbor pulls into the driveway, Hercules cries for him to come and pet him
Much better than barking
However, big work trucks he's not used to seeing parked on the street he'll bark at. Neighbors he's not used to seeing outside since it's been getting warm, he'll bark at, people out walking he can see pass by the fence, he barks at. And these aren't little woo woo's, these are mean dog barks but he's not frothing at the mouth either.
Where do you draw the line? I mean I want my dog to warn me if something is "out of the norm" when it comes to barking, but I surely don't want him barking at the neighbors. I've taken to going out there and telling him to knock it off when it comes to the neighbors. Which he really doesn't listen very well until I make a move to go and physically get him or tell him to come. I always stop him if he barks in the morning or late at night no matter what. But now he's seen the one set of neighbors outside on numerous occassions and will still bark at them initially. These neighbors are kitty corner behind me. I won't even go into the display he put on when the other next door neighboors girlfriend was outside killing weeds. Talk about scaring the crap out of someone with how he carried on
and I couldn't get him to stop without removing him from the situation.
So do I hope with time he'll see these things as normal (he's only been here for 3 months and the fence has only been here for a month)? Or do I have to stop him from barking at everything? How much of this behavior would it take before I really get my neighbors ticked off?