Help! Barking issue

So Lucy's decided it's her job in life to bark at anything and everything that walks past our apartment. And since we're on the ground floor with big french doors out to our patio, she sees a lot.

Squirrels? Bark.
Car? Bark.
People? Bark.
Dogs? Bark bark bark bark.

We've trained her not to do it (mostly). Anytime she barked, we'd say "Enough!" and wait for her to be quiet. As soon as she was, she'd get a treat.

Now however, she's decided this is fun, and barking gets her treats. She'll bark at ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and then come running over expecting a treat. If we don't give her one, she barks at us. Today I was cooking, and she laid down on the kitchen floor and started growling and yapping little by little, trying to get treats.

How do we fix this!? I've created a monster!!!

That's why it's important to also reward ALL times she does not bark at things she usually barks at. In fact at this point you may want to only do that. If she looks at a squirrel give her a treat ASAP before she barks so she is being rewarded for not barking. Same with cars. If you see he go on alert shove a treat in her face before she has a chance to bark. It will let her feel the urge but not respond to it with a bark.

You can also try teaching her a "watch me" to interrupt her before she barks or even if she's gotten a bark in. Reward her for watching you. Also if anytime she sees something that might have made her bark in the past and then looks at you reward her. This may allow for you to stop her more quickly if she is about to bark, that way you don't have to wait to pull out the treat and get her to notice it all before she makes a peep. This makes it so as soon as she looks like she's gonna bark you can say "watch me" and as she watches you you are able to get the treat.
When she does bark try walking her away quickly, making her go in the opposite direction of what she wants to bark at. You can also see if body blocking works. I would not give her a treat for stopping but give her a treat if she remains silent for a few seconds (not if she is asking for one, you don't want to play that game).

As for the problems with begging through barking you'll have to put an end to that now, DO NOT give in to this ever or it'll just get stronger. If you need to walk right out of the room. Ignore her completely.

Interrupting her before she actually gets a bark in will be the best way to do it IMO, are you able to tell when she wants to bark?

Makes sense. Sounds like I'm going to be hanging out by the back door all evening!

We've tried this too, somewhat. When she starts barking like mad, we'll take her by the collar and walk her around the corner, out of sight of what's making her bark, and put her in a sit/stay. 5-10 seconds later (usually after whatever's going by has passed), she gets released.

She'll do a low gravely growl first most of the time. Otherwise, she barks every time so much as a leave rustles outside--so yeah, if I sit by the back door staring outside all afternoon, I can probably predict what will set her off!

Thanks for the tips.

Luckily with all my dogs I could check out what they were barking at and could say " It's just a ____ thank you for telling me , it's OK. " And that would end it .

Clickers work really well for this type of thing, too, since you can click as soon as your dog starts to get aroused, which will interrupt him from starting to bark and get him to come to you for a treat.

Is there any way you can cover up the window so that he can't see out? Or block him from the area so that he can't see out unless you are there ready to do a training session?

Yes you'll have to do a lot of supervising and sessions which is a pain I'm sure. When you are not home can you put her in a basement or other room that does not give her access to the things she barks at? This way she cannot rehearse the behavior while you are away.

If you want you can do two weeks of super boot camp training and leash her to yourself the whole time so she cannot bark the whole two weeks and pray to God that after that she is broken of the habit. Like housebreaking.

That will end it...for 30 seconds, until the next squirrel comes along! We live in a high traffic area, so every 3-5 minutes a person/car/squirrel is going by, all day.

Is that going to teach her anything different than giving her a command while she barks? I'm afraid she'll still bark at me/at nothing outside, wanting me to click.

We live in an apartment, with two bedrooms and our living room all in a row, with big picture windows or french doors (floor length windows, basically). The only room that doesn't have a window to the outside is the bathroom...she has free run of the house during the day when we're at work, so I'm sure she's amusing herself all day doing this.

Unfortunately, we live in an apartment, so keeping her away from windows is difficult. I could lock her in the bathroom, but she's never been crated (never had any problems with her peeing or chewing, so we didn't see a reason to--and she hated it when we tried).

I think we may have to leash her. That'll be a riot. Our foster dog is being leashed to us for house training, and she'll be leashed to us for barking. Zach and I can have doggy battles with our doggy appendages.

The problem with barking, as I think has been mentioned before, is that it is a very self-rewarding behavior. Barking makes the thing go away every time (or at least she thinks it's the barking that makes it go away), and dogs basically just like to hear themselves talk. This is why every time she barks at the window, whether you are home or not, she is getting rewarded; and this is why it's so important to take away her access to the window while you cannot supervise and do training sessions around it.

Yes. Giving her a command while she barks does work in some situations, but often it actually rewards the behavior. It takes away all of her responsibility in this situation - she doesn't really have to think about not barking, she just has to listen to you when you give her a cue.

It all basically works under the Premack Principle - a high-probability (easy) behavior rewards a low-probability (difficult) behavior. Example: If I put a bowl of food down, there is a high probablity that my dog is going to go to the food bowl and eat. So I am going to ask my dog to do a more difficult behavior - like a sit stay - and if he performs that behavior, I will cue him to go to the bowl and eat. The "go eat" cue is the reward for the sit stay.

In your case, if the behaviors you are asking for when the dog is barking are relatively easy (or highly rewarded), they are going to be high-probability behaviors. So, he barks at the window, and you ask him to do a sit, then he gets a treat. The "sit" cue is the reward for the barking, and the treat is the reward for the sit.

Backchaining to teach a series of behaviors also works off of the Premack Principle, so if you are familiar with backchaining maybe that will help you understand what I am trying to explain (and which I'm sure I'm not explaining well, sorry).

What I am suggesting instead, is to click (and of course, treat) her when you think she's about to bark, but just before she actually does bark. There are usually several body cues that signal that she's about to bark, such as (obviously) looking out the window, tensing up, pricking ears, growling (yes, click growling!), huffing (like a "silent" bark, yes, click that too!), charging the window, etc. It doesn't matter what she's doing, as long as she's not barking you can click. Eventually she'll figure out that just looking out the window will get her a click, and she will be able to look out and stay relaxed (because she's waiting for her treat). THAT'S GOOD! Then let her look out the window, and don't click; she'll probably look to you as if to say, "Didn't you see me look? Where's my treat??" You can click her looking at you, or you can ignore the look back and wait until she looks out the window a second time before you click.