I know they're all noisy, but mine (or rather my family's) has a difference. The moment it's left alone in the living room, it starts barking and doesn't stop until someone goes to sit with it. It's in a cage when alone to prevent it damaging furniture or chewing live cables, but it's in the house and not out in the cold. And it doesn't mind the cage at all - as long as someone is in the room.
It is especially annoying in the mornings where my lazy jobless self would like to sleep to anything later than 9am. As soon as the family leave, it starts that awful annoying high-pitched constant bark and generally continues until either I buckle and go downstairs (with an inevitable angry kick at the cage) or my family come home a couple of hours later. I can't block out the sound, I've tried earplugs and sleeping with the pillow on my head, its no good. When I get a job and will lose sleep on my days off I would really start to hate that dog. I can't take it upstairs, either, he's a chewer and I just don't trust it with computer cables and my things.
I know a lot of dog owners visit AO, so my question is, how do I train this dog to not keep barking when left alone for just an hour or two? Shouting doesn't work, leaving it toys and bones and food doesn't work - it just ignores them and barks until someone is there, then starts happily chewing them. Is there a solution to this?
