my dog barks/growls at most noise outside the door and I made it worse

Question

So, per the title, we have a 1 year old female Corgi pup. About 6 months ago she started getting more vocal. I work from home and have rather low tolerance for unprompted barking, so we tried immediately to stop it. Trying with videos, positive associations, etc. She has very rarely "barked for real", it's more of a low intensity thing. She reacts to most noises that come from the hallway (we live in an apartment building). She's fine with cars, trucks, etc. But if someone opens/closes a door in the hallway, people talk, another dog is running, someone is throwing out trash or vacuuming, she reacts. Every single time.

Back around January we had a time of peak family stress. Long story short, there have been several times around then when she was very harshly corrected. I understand now that was a mistake (this is our first dog). We always did it right when she was reacting to hallway noise.

The result now is that she will do kind of half-suppressed barks and growls, but constantly, for 90% of hallway noises and increasingly for videos played on the phone or other not immediately identified sounds. She seems to have moderated the reaction, but to be reacting way more often. We've tried again with the desensitizing videos, the recording of door slamming, etc. It seems to keep it under control, but never to solve it.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't trust us to deal with the perceived threat, and I can tell that she's also half worried that we're gonna be very mad again if she barks unchecked.

What can we do? Is a dog behaviorist worth it?

I have kibble or treats around that I throw at her saying "no, quiet" every time she reacts or "yes, good quiet" when she seems to notice something but hasn't reacted yet. But I cannot do this every 15 minutes for most hours of the day, I could loose my mind.

Any actionable advice for us?

Answer 1

At this point you've trained her that every single noise in the hallway is something to react to. Either she gets reprimanded or she gets a treat or something else will happen. Currently there's no scenario where there's a noise in the hallway and nothing happens.

What you should do is react to a noise in the hallway the same way you'd react to a car or truck on the street: don't react at all, as long as she doesn't bark. Don't look at her, don't speak to her, don't give her a treat, don't get tense in preparation of anything she might do.

This will be as much training for you as for her. If you hear a noise, take a deep breath and conciously relax, then continue with whatever you've been doing as if the noise was never there. If you tense up at every noise, your dog reads your body language and still reacts to the noise.

I think she should be allowed some quiet vocalization like grunting, huffing or low growling. That is her natural way of expressing her emotions.

If she barks at the door, a better solution than to scold her is to calmly get up, stand between her and the door, look at her and tell her "no" in a calm voice. If she knows a command that sends her to her bed ect., you can also stand between her and the door and send her away. Translated to dog language this means "Guarding the door is my job. You don't do it."