Hi ladies

Looking for some ideas and guidance as to how we can stop our 3.5 year old dog to stop barking at anything that moves in the garden/street. Okay anything is an exaggeration but it really doesn't take much to start him off.

There is probably 3/4 main things that start him off (1) the minah (sp??) birds start up and that means he knows that something is "happening" in the garden so off he goes barking barking barking down the stairs out the doggie door to see whats happening (2) possums - goes off if he hears them running accross the roof or if he discovers one of them in a tree in the garden (3) pigeons - we have a rock wall at the end of our garden and there are a number of pigeons that roost there and again he'll stand under where they are barking barking barking until eventually they fly away (not becuase of his barking mind but just because they wanted to!).

However main thing that sets him off that I want to be able cure is people walking up and down our street. We live in a battleaxe and have a living room upstairs with big windows/sliding door onto deck that looks down the drive to our road. J will stand at the window/sliding door watching out and will just start barking and barking if he sees anyone walking up or down the road! With the stair gates still up it means he can't always get outside to bark at them but if they are open its bark at the window first then head down the stairs barking as he goes to the gate until they are gone.

I understand from something I saw previously that in his mind the barking works. He sees them, he barks, they go away .............. so its obvious he should bark! He doesn't they would have been going anyway.

Has anyone any suggestions on what we could try to do to stop the behaviour? He was quite strong willed as a puppy and DH and I probably were a bit too soft on him in regards to his training. This barking thing has been going on for a good while now (but not since birth) but I think its been getting worse over the last little while.

I may just need to get a dog trainer in the teach me/us/him what to do but thought I'd try here first.