Revenge on the Bassets

One of the breed characteristics of Basset Hounds is that when anything happens out front, they go running to the front door, windows and the front picket fence, barking the whole while. Its a cacophony! And while I appreciate the security advantages of it, 90% of the time its over nothing - or something ridiculous like someone walking on the road perpendicular to ours (we're 2 houses off the corner). We've managed to stop Flash, more or less, but we haven't been able to stop Doodle - not even with an electronic bark collar as the skin rolls of the Basset neck aren't conducive to their use. And once Doodle gets going, Flash gets going due to hound pack behavior.

We've tried everything. Dominance training. Positive reinforcement training. Different barking collars. Trainers. Anti-bark whistles and signals. Water bottles. Jumping up and stopping them. We were considering the miserable thought of having Doodle de-barked, because the noise is outrageous and has, on occasion, put me into a migraine. And Doodle, sad to say, isn't really rehome-able with his piddle problem.

Well, right now, we're dogsitting for our friends' Pekingese. And she doesn't like that cacophony. So she goes after them with her little dog, Napoleonic bark. And she's put a stop to it. A dead stop. Its been soooo quiet. We're thrilled.

All this time, all we needed was a bossy little dog. Who knew?