I'm currently unemployed so I'm the one taking care of Chili during the day.. and he's calm and obedient and cuddly most of the time. But as soon as my husband walks through that door he starts barking and barking and barking - there is no stopping him! Fine, I know he's only 11 weeks but we need to figure out a way to deal with this NOW.
We've taught him "speak" and "quiet", and when we just practice it he is really good. But he doesn't listen once he starts for real. Again, I know he might just need some more training, but I would like to hear some advice.
This barking continues, by the way, in the morning and doesn't stop until my husband has gone out the door to work. Then he's quiet again and is behaving real nice for the remainer of the day.. until the evening when it all starts again..

Like I said: we've taught him the commands. We've tried to ignore him and that works sometimes, but sometimes he starts barking at odd hours, so we need to quiet him immediately so not to disrupt the neighbours.
We've tried playing with him, feeding him, giving him water, taking him outside to "do his business", but it seems like none of these are the reason for his barking.. Anyone else had this problem and how did you solve it?

WHY???

I would suggest taking him for a walk when your husband comes home. This way, if he did bark- you're outside and less likely to disturb the neighbors. Also, it'll be less likely that he'll bark at your husband outside because there are "more important cool things" to check out. As for the mornings- a frozen stuffed kong can work wonders

Our Cocker Spaniel is extremely reactive and goes into barking frenzies constantly. We've had quite a bit of success with something called a "Pet Convincer", which is just a can of compressed air that breaks their attention and snaps them out of the frenzy. You can get it on Amazon, look for either "Pet Corrector" or "Pet Convincer" (they're basically the same thing".

Does he only bark when your husband is home? Sorry... i'm just a little confused. It sounds like he's fine when your husband isn't home.

Can you tell if it's an excited happy-to-see-you barking? Or stressed and upset barking?

if it's an excited barking, i would probably suggest redirecting him. Sometimes Gus can get VERY talkative when he's excited to see me (when i used to pick him up from daycare). It was to the point where you couldn't even talk to the person standing right in front of you. But the second i picked up a treat, looked him in the eye and said, "Quiet", he would immediately shut up. I'd make him watch me for a couple seconds, then reward him for being quiet.

If it's a stressed or upset barking, i think it would be best to figure out what it is that is making him upset. If it's anticipating your husband leaving for work, then maybe you could try desensitizing him to that event.

It's definitely a happy-to-see-you barking! Thanks! I'll try the looking into his eye thing!

Of course.. I don't suppose it's a happy barking in the morning.. then I actually believe he's barking because he knows my husband is first - getting ready to leave; and then - leaves.

You might wnat to try desensitizing him to departures then. I suppose it can't make it worse, and it might help you to avoid any separation anxiety in the future We lived through some pretty terrible separation anxiety for a couple months! It's not fun! haha

The happy-to-see-you barking, i would suggest ignoring him first if you can. Especially if he's not food driven, then you might just be rewarding his barking with attention. Our husky is very food driven, so whenever food is involved, he's all of a sudden very focused and very obedient haha. Just turn your back on him, and go about your business. That is what we did when we used to come home to a very excited Gus. But at daycare, i couldn't just let him scream (and it was screaming, not barking!). I didn't want to reward him with picking his leash up and leaving with him. So i had to bribe him to quiet him down, and then reward his calmness with some attention.

Good luck! Chili is still very young, so I'm sure he'll learn quickly! And he's still small so it's probably easier to ignore an ankle biter Gus is 10mths now and he's as tall as i am when he stands up!

Do you or your husband give him excited attention when he barks like that?