Taking a reactive dog camping
We love our dog Buddy. He’s a real joy, he adds to our lives, and he keeps us more active. But when we brought him home from a shelter earlier this year, we knew he wasn’t exactly well trained. Then when we discovered Buddy was infected with heartworms, the treatment called for keeping him inactive and relatively quiet for months on end.
That served to isolate him terribly. We didn’t get to socialize Buddy with other dogs, or even other people, so there were precious few training moments available. We know Buddy hates motorcycles, and, to be honest, he’s not real hot on other two wheeled vehicles either.
Golf carts are the third entry in the trifecta of vehicles our dog hates to see on neighborhood streets, a prejudice I actually share with my dog. Why do people need to drive around town in golf carts when we don’t have a golf course?
Now that I’ve set everything up, you are ready for the real story.
He would bark like a Dr. Seuss rhyme.
Buddy barked and sniffed from there to here, and then sniffed and barked from here to there.
He sniffed and barked almost everywhere.
Buddy barked and he barked, he woofed and he woofed, till girl was crazy enough to blow off the roof.
Nursery Rhymes with Mr. Monster
We had to choose a campsite in advance during our recent visit to Kettle Moraine State Forest – Northern Unit in Wisconsin, and knowing our dog is reactive, I tried to pick a camping site that wasn’t too close to its neighbors. I can’t say my planning was spot on, at least in terms of keeping Buddy from making himself a public nuisance. We ended up across from a water source and next to a busy path.
We endured two and one-half days of Buddy’s barking at cyclists, motorcyclers, cars, walkers, hikers, golf-carts, and all pedestrians in general. And OMG, did Buddy ever bark. He also barked at deer, wild turkey, dogs, squirrels, birds (including Canadian Geese, as well as assorted song birds,) and the ubiquitous striped ground squirrels that chased each other around just beyond his reach.
The forest we were in must have been productive, everywhere we looked there were squirrels. The park was also pretty popular for the middle of September, everywhere we looked there were people. Buddy would study the squirrels before barking at them. He would bark at the people before studying them. Yes, Buddy even barked at the wind, in case you were wondering.
It was pure cacophony.
The Scarlet Multi-Colored Letter
Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me
Smashmouth
I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed
She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb
In the shape of an “L” on her forehead
And, while he was barking, Buddy refused to acknowledge any and every command we spoke emphasized yelled screamed in his direction. We began to despair. We even considered calling off vacation. We considered boondocking to avoid as much confrontation as we could. But, no matter what we did, squirrels and wildlife of all kinds were still going to be a problem without access to tactical nuclear weapons or nerve gas.
It didn’t really end when we got into the tent either. Buddy would bark through the tent walls at night. In case you were wondering, he barked from inside the tent in the morning too.
Once, he awoke from a bit of a nap in the tent, was scared by a sound, and had what could only be described as a tantrum. Our dog tore right thru a waterproof window that wasn’t zipped closed. Buddy made the equivalent of three large tears with one swipe of a paw.
Now there’s a gigantic “L”covering the full height of the rear window on our tent. It’s shaped out in three different kinds of tent repair tape, because it was larger than I could cover with any single strip. To my way of thinking, it’s worse than my fingers shaping out an L on my forehead…
Heading to the store
I’m pretty sure my wife, girl, was slowly going insane by this time. We had to do something, anything, to get a little peace. We pondered moving to the edge of wilderness and camping in a National Forest far from any campground, or anyone else. I considered just giving up and going home.
We even considered drugging Buddy with girl’s Trazodone, or my Lorazepam. Damn, I thought, you have to be pretty desperate to consider resorting to our own prescription medicine. I’m proud we didn’t resort to this option, but I have to confess it was considered.
Then, in an inspired moment, we all piled into the car and drove to where girl’s phone had a decent connection to the internet. She started searching for pet stores, hoping to find something – anything – to quiet Buddy down. I think she discovered a Petco (or something similar) about 15 miles away.
While we were out driving around, we did see Lake Michigan. It was a huge, endless, impressive expanse of water, just like I remembered it. Then Buddy began barking ferociously at a motorcycle next to us. For a moment I thought he might go through a window to get out. Then it was gone, both the lake and the motorcycle. We pulled into a large parking lot, arriving at our destination.
Bark-tastic time in the old town tonight
Since we can’t trust our dog alone, I got to dog sit while girl went shopping. That is usually a “win” for me. Girl enjoys shopping, and I don’t. But this time it didn’t go so well.
Buddy was on high alert. His every sense was alive, and he was snorting like a bull. A long stripe of fur raised up, from the top of Buddy’s head back to his tail. Despite the fact that girl parked far away from anything, I was essentially trapped inside a car with a doggo stuck in ‘Cujo Mode’.
At this point, I’m considering giving up and going home, assuming I came out of this alive. That assumption wasn’t a given from my standpoint.
I’d tell you my ear’s began ringing, but my right ear has ringing 100% of the time anyway. My ear (left) began ringing.
I’ve experienced rock concert levels of noise. I’ve seen the Who, Cheap Trick, R.E.M., the B-52’s and Pink Floyd in concert, none of them was louder than Buddy’s bark. I swear it was so loud it echoed inside the car.
Meeting Mr. Bark-y
Girl returned to the car in better spirits, she had found a couple of potential solutions. The best alternative, the one we tried first, was a bark collar that we nicknamed, Mr. Bark-y. We put it around Buddy’s neck, and we got a brand new dog.
The effect wasn’t instantaneous, although to our eyes it was like a miracle. When Buddy barked, the collar sent out an ultrasonic squeal to deter the behavior. The first time it went off, Buddy actually scared himself. Buddy may be a slab 70 lbs of muscle and teeth, but he can be the biggest baby you’ve ever seen.
Buddy tried to crawl up in girl’s lap, he just knows he can fit in her lap, and lord knows he tried, right there in the car as girl drove away from the pet store. Once Buddy got the idea that barking was going to set off the shrill noise, he quieted right down.
But, Buddy sat in the back of the car shivering, looking absolutely, abjectly, out of his mind in fear. I was horrified, but I asked myself what other options were available? How can you train a pet as reactive as Buddy without resorting to some kind of training aid?
Living with Mr. Bark-y
I’m proud to report that Buddy is the dog we always thought he could be. The shivering from setting off Mr. Barky took only a few days to end, and within those same few days we were able to take the collar off of Buddy, and turn it off 99 and 44/100’s percent of the time. For about a week we needed to bring out Mr. Bark-y every morning, it was like Buddy awoke and decided to whole thing was a bad dream, that he was free to bark with reckless abandon once again. Pulling out Mr. Bark-y quickly dissuaded him of the idea that it was all a dream.
For the first day, we pulled out Mr. Bark-y perhaps five times as a reminder, the next day – four times, the day after three, etc. Within a day or two, all the fear and shaking from the collar being set off had subsided too. The change in Buddy is considerable, we no longer have to scream out endlessly for him to stop an unwanted behavior. When Buddy decides to get a little too rambunctious, we just show him Mr. Bark-y, and he quiets right down.
The change in girl and myself is also considerable. We can truly relax out in the woods camping. It’s really nice not to have to cringe every time a person or critter approaches the site.
Wildlife is no longer driven away by his noise, and is much more likely to visit areas near our camp. Just a few days after purchasing the collar, I found two relatively fresh piles of whitetail deer scat on the edge of our campsite, and turkeys once again began to frequent our environs.
The squirrels really appreciated the change in our dog’s demeanor as well. While he couldn’t quite avoid making the occasional lunge at small ground squirrels, he did so almost silently, and with lessening frequency.
