Dogs in prepping

[ladyhk13]

Please be patient while I set this up. DH and I were talking tonight about Iran sending their ships over here and were doing the what if..."the Afgans are really pissed at us and we owe China pretty much our country and if they decided they wanted our land instead of money and all these countries got together and hit us at one time..." What if tshtf and these people came down our roads by the hundreds and we had to get out of the house immediately and head for the woods behind our house for a temp BO until they were gone.
We have 2 young (7 months) pups. Black lab/shephard/bulldog....anyway, they are probably almost 60 lbs already but still babies. They don't bark unless someone comes near the house and we have to stop them from running towards whatever it is and making lots of noise, which they are pretty good at listening but the bark has already sounded. So if put into a position where we would have to get out fast and quietly, how would you handle or train young animals like this to bark only at certain times? They obviously won't know the difference between the "normal" tresspasser that they need to bark at and the "bad guy" that we must have absolute quiet in order to hide from. Any suggestions?

[Fatty]

Iv used bark collars on my bigger pup and she responded well to it.

[ladyhk13]

We use electric fence collars on them now...so how would we change between the two collars? I don't want them to not bark at all...still want them to bark at strangers coming up the driveway and stuff but if we were in the woods and needed them to be quiet how would we train them to not bark if a stranger came when we didn't want them to vs if we were in the woods on a normal day and someone came out there and we did need to be alerted? Am I making any sense?

[dragon5126]

first off the border fences work to trian them to their limit and once learned are only needed for occassional reinforcement, the same with the "no bark" collars Actually the no barks dont completely stop the barking unless the K9 is a bit dense, they generally learn that they can bark quietly without setting them off, wich is actually what you want since it still wil sound a warning for you but not announce to the interloper until you release the dog outside their normal boundary. And using both collars at once isn't an issue. The best types of both will buzz a warning first and if the K9 continues (barking or approaching the fence) then it goes to the stronger stimulus of a mild shock, so depending on what type of unit you have now, you need to get the other for the no bark...

[Kodiak]

I have two beagles and they are barking machines...If the family was in danger i think i would either have to leave the dogs in the house while we made our exit, or let them loose out of the front door and hope they dont follow us into the woods. Perhaps they would distract whoever is was we were running from to give us more time to hide. I hate the thought of losing my dogs, but better that than losing the family.

[ladyhk13]

My issue isn't so much while in the house or even while in the yard...it's more if we took them with us into the woods to a BOL waiting out whatever was going on at the house/area (we live in the country) until we could go back. We wouldn't be going far since our property is our BOL but if we got swarmed we may have to leave the confines of our home and go out onto the land. If "whomever" decided to search the area we would need to be able to stay in our location with perfect quiet as to not give our position away so the dogs would also need to be quiet. The bark collar would not do any good at that point but with strangers around they would want to alert us. I would not want to let them go obviously since I wouldn't want them hurt and I know if it came to our safety or the dogs my DH would put them down and I don't want that either. So I was just wondering if any of you have thought of this or made a plan or trained your dogs already. Since ours are so young I thought that maybe someone would have some training exercises we could do with them in advance so we would be prepared for such a scenario.

[The Stig]

That seems like a tall order: you want them to bark and alert if they are in the house or your yard (I presume) but then know that you've "bugged out" and then not do what they are genetically wired to do.

I hope someone comes along who's done something like this before to help you out. Sadly, I'm afraid if you get into that position, where "someone" has swarmed your house and you're going out in the back forty till things cool off, you are going to have to start making some very difficult choices.

[bacpacker]

I would think a military or police dog would trained similar to what your discussing Lady. Maybe not the BO part, but respond to command, I.e. not to bark. I have no idea where that type training could be found but I feel certain it's available.

[ladyhk13]

I know I am asking a lot of them but I sure don't want to lose them or put us in danger either. I think I'll give the pet stores in some of the larger cities a call and see if they have obiedience classes and start there. Once we get in them maybe they can suggest the specific training for what I want them to do. There must be a way, just thought that as preppers someone would have thought of their dogs being in this position and have trained for a contingency plan since so many of us have them and would not want to just leave them or worse. Thanks for the imput and if anyone out there thinks of something please, I'm all ears!

[The Stig]

I would think a military or police dog would trained similar to what your discussing Lady. Maybe not the BO part, but respond to command, I.e. not to bark. I have no idea where that type training could be found but I feel certain it's available.

That's not a half bad idea. Wonder if there's a military training manual somewhere on the internets that could be of help.