[lovsthosebigdogs]

I feel for everyone who has to deal with a barking dog issue. I had Great Pyrenees for almost 39 years of my life. They are barkers. Like the Tibetan Mastiffs spoken about it has to do with what they were bred to do. Pyrs were bred to stay up on the mountains of France, alone, and guard sheep from predators and their first line of defense was barking, not attacking. So pyrs bark all the time to say, "Hey, I'm here so stay away." A pyrs bark can be heard for a mile. And that include through the house walls. When my pyrs barked neighbors could hear it inside their house even if the dogs were inside my house. We had neighbors complaining on occasion, but most of my dogs were pretty reasonable and I could train them to not bark ALL the time. My last pyr, however, barked nonstop. We used a citronella collar first- he emptied expensive cartridge after cartridge. So we moved up to shock collar. He'd get shocked, wince, get shocked again, wince again etc. So we gave it up because he never stopped
barking with it. This is a dog who was a therapy dog and very well trained in all other areas. He felt he had a job to do and with pyr determination, he was going to do it. He couldn't be stopped and he was a huge problem. I live on an acre and all my neighbors have an acre also but they could hear him from inside my house to inside theirs. The police came repeatedly and threatened us. We tried a trainer who had no luck. We tried more exercise. Nothing helped. What should we do? Give him back to the breeder? Give him to the shelter? Put him down? We loved this big, noisy boy and it's not like I didn't have many years experience with the breed and it's not like he wasn't great in all other ways and an excellent Therapy Dog and Ambassador at public events. He just had a big mouth. We were pushed to the edge and had to make a choice. We loved him enough to choose debarking. It cost us $2000 and we did it out of love and wanting to keep our dog. The results were that he was still loud enough to be head if we were living in a situation like TV, but living on an acre it was fine. And that's why we won't have any more pyrs. Can't take the chance on having a nuisance barker. He never knew he was debarked and he continued to go through the motions, but it allowed us to keep him until he passed at 12 1/2. I was NEVER sorry I did it as a final resort and I won't apologize for it.