My wife has a little Yorkie. He’s eighteen months old and his name is Monty. We got him as a very small puppy in 2008 and he was never really a barker, which was nice as Yorkies do have a tendency to be just a bit yappy.

However, just a few months ago things changed - if he heard any noise outside, he started barking. We live in a very quiet part of town - so any external traffic is usually audible. Certainly, it’s not all bad. For example, should an intruder try to enter your property then some advance warning is a good thing. Annoyingly, Monty kept barking for some time after the “threat” disappeared. It got annoying pretty quickly.

Luckily for us, one of my wife’s friends had encountered a similar problem with her own dog and was able to advise how she had remedied her problem. Based upon her advice, my wife decided that she was going to fix the problem before we all went mad - or Monty met with an untimely end. What she did was to get a bottle of mineral water – one of those ones with the “sports” type cap. Every time that Monty started barking at some external noise she squirted just a little water on him, told him that he was naughty and shook the bottle in his general direction. She didn’t shout at him. He was told off firmly but quietly.

As it transpired, she only had to actually splash him two or three times at most. After that she just shook an empty bottle at him and squeezed it so that it made a crumpling noise. That was more than enough for Monty. Within three days there was a very noticable reduction in his barking. After a week of this treatment the barking was pretty much a thing of the past.

The added bonus was that Monty’s therapy was not only extremely effective, but also selective. Noises from outside no longer initiate a prolonged bout of barking – but if anyone comes to the door, or if the doorbell rings, he still barks. I’m certain that my wife could treat this barking also, and using the exact same technique – but we don’t think it’s a bad thing, especially when you bear in mind that he doesn’t continue to bark once the initial stimulus has been examined to his satisfaction.

So, if your dog is a problem barker, you might want to try the water bottle treatment. It’s humane and it seems to be both effective and fast acting. There are other ways to stop your dog barking of course, but this one is well worth a try in the first instance.