Bark busters: Teaching your dog the sweet sound of silence

06:19 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 10, 2005

By Nancy Holland / 11 News

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If a barking dog is driving you crazy, a local company says it can fix the problem by speaking the dog's own language.

It isn't just the garbage men, anybody who shows up at Julie Nguyen's house is greeted by chaos.

Bark Busters' Bob Williams says he can fix it.

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Julie Nguyen's dogs no longer bark when the doorbell rings.

"We're going to walk in and dominate the dogs immediately," Williams said.

Nguyen hopes so. Her dogs even dictate what TV shows she watches.

"I like watching the Animal Planet channel and I can't watch it cause Simba and my dogs start barking at the TV and they end up fighting." Nguyen explains.

Williams promises no pain, no drugs -- just training Nguyen to be leader of the pack.

"Dogs are yearning for leadership," he said.

It starts with laying down the lines dogs aren't allowed to cross. Then comes a session including lots of praise.

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Jan Newsom hopes neighbors will no longer complain about her barking dogs.

Across town, Jan Newsom's dogs live outside where a neighbor complained. Home video shows they routinely went nuts any time anyone walked by the fence. She worried they might bite.

"You know, there's a whole lot of problems like separation anxiety and of course aggression," said Sheryl Conn with Bark Busters. "You can have sibling rivalry problems between dogs that can become pretty vicious as well. So, we deal with all kinds of behaviour problems."

Newsom was told her dogs also needed her to lead.

We returned to Julie Nguyen's house about an hour after a very intense 10 minute training session with the dogs. We tested the four-legged "students" by ringing the doorbell. Other than a slightly gutteral bit of dogspeak, there was silence.

Nguyen admits most of the training was with her. "I see it's actually working. I'm just going to have to work hard on it."

"It's all about training the owner. The dog knows how to be a dog," said Williams.

And days later at Jan Newsom's, even beating a stick on the fence doesn't rile the pack.

"I don't think I'll get any more complaints about them. That's a good thing," said Newsom.

It's enough to make this mail carrier declare a happy ending for this dog's tale.