Q: My wife and I have two Labs, a 13-month old yellow male, and an 11-month old chocolate female. Both dogs have been neutered. The male is our problem child; he barks when he is outside in our fenced in backyard uncontrollably and for no reason. He will just sit in the middle of the yard and bark. We have tried telling him "no bark," and holding his muzzle but it did not work at all. If we bring him inside where he spends a good deal of time anyway, he will usually sleep for awhile, but if you are asleep in bed, he will go to the foot of the bed and bark uncontrollably at you. We bought a bark collar for him, but that does not even phase him, he barks right through it. I work a midnight shift, and my wife is up all night with this dog, and she has to be at work at 7:00 every day.

Oh and by the way, when he is barking in the yard and you go out to get him, he runs away from you as soon as you make a move towards him and then starts barking from the other side of the yard. So at 3:00 am my wife is running around the yard trying to catch the dog to shut him up so the neighbors don’t complain. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We love the dog but this behavior cannot continue. We have considered even surgically removing his voice box, any opinion on that? Thanks.

A: Labradors require several months of weekly obedience class and daily practice with their owners in order to grow up civilized. Under the age of 2 years, they can be very rowdy dogs. Since you guys are chasing this dog around rather than simply calling him to you, it sounds like there is a lack in the obedience education.

It's not just the dog -- in fact, it's probably not even half the dog. Once the owner learns how to really train a dog like this, the dog part is fairly easy. Any obedience instructor will tell you that training the owners is the hard part, they could train the dogs in much less time!

But don't get me wrong, handling a high-drive dog that has the strength and energy of a Labrador is not an easy skill to learn. That's why it takes several months of going to a structured training situation, like an obedience class, to develop the skill.

When my dogs bark, I call them to me. Then I praise them for coming, and give some kind of reward. It might be hearty petting, 3 to 5 tosses of the tennis ball, or 3 to 5 tiny treats that I do NOT show the dog before I'm ready to give them.

If you wave food around when calling your dog, it's more like a bribe than a reinforcer, and many dogs will learn not to come unless you have food, or they will simply decide the adrenaline rush they are getting from the barking is more important to them at that moment than that treat you're dangling.

With the method of controlling barking that I use, once I've rewarded the dog, I release the dog. If the dog goes back to barking, I call the dog again, seven times in a row at first! Every time the dog comes when called, the dog is greeted with praise and petting.

The petting helps shift the dog out of that adrenaline rush, out of a drive for defense or prey, and into a pack drive, directed toward listening to you. Over time, the dog's barking will diminish, the dog will stop after you call just once or twice, and the dog's whole attitude will improve.

This method won't help for leaving the dog alone outside without you watching and staying ready to call the dog, though. There are so many other problems from leaving dogs outside alone -- meter readers and trespassing kids getting themselves bitten in the daytime; disturbing the peace with barking and getting sprayed by skunks at night. Labradors get stolen, too, and they also get bored enough to leave the fenced yard and go exploring.

Debarking surgery is a last-ditch solution for some dogs, but in this case, barking is only part of your problem. Keeping the dog in at night and giving him the training he needs will solve the barking, and prevent even more serious problems that will otherwise develop in the future.

One of the difficulties you're having may be due to two dogs so close together in age. It's usually best to train one before you get the next one, putting about 2 years between dogs. When two dogs are raised together, it can be hard to get them to bond to humans, and to listen to humans. They tend to bond more to each other, unless you diligently separate them for specific things, including regular training sessions.

One measure you might try at night is to confine him to a dog crate, preferably in the bedroom. If he insists on barking in the crate in the bedroom, you could try moving the crate to another room and shutting the door. I would experiment with doing this in a way that gives the dog feedback, letting him know he can be in the bedroom if he will be quiet. If he is quiet in the crate in the bedroom, the next step could be confining him in the bedroom with you at night, but not in the crate.

At his age, you don't want him wandering through the house when you're asleep, because it would be normal for him to chew destructively until around age 2 years. This is due to the fact that a dog's permanent teeth are loose when they come in, and are set in the jaw by chewing. Many dogs are so driven to chew that they just can't stop to remember what things are okay to chew and what things are not.

Labs typically do this destructive chewing until at least 2 years of age, sometimes longer for the males. You can help them for later by carefully redirecting all their chewing to their own toys, but punishment doesn't work, and you can't rush them through this stage--it's a maturing process.

If there is an obedience club in your area they usually have affordable classes that will give you training to do for the period of time a Labrador needs. Sometimes other obedience classes you might find in your area will only offer one or two 6 to 8- week sessions. One session of that would not be enough, and two might not be, either. The American Kennel Club has a Geographical List of AKC Show, Obedience and Tracking Clubs at: http://www.akc.org/dic/clubs/states/

Unfortunately, most people don't realize just how much training a Labrador needs. That's why there are so many homeless Labradors these days. Labs were bred to work all day, retrieving for the hunter, working as drug dogs, working as guide dogs. A Labrador without a job to do can be an unhappy and difficult dog.

This is a very intelligent breed that takes extremely well to training. Since your wife is the one who has to manage this dog alone in the middle of the night, it would be good if she could be the handler in obedience class. If that is not feasible, you could do that part, then carefully teach her all the moves. The other dog will require training, too, and the dogs need individual training times, not always together.

It's encouraging that you didn't mention any aggression as part of this situation, but without good training, it could progress to that. The dogs are at good ages to learn quickly, and class can be a lot of fun. I hope things go well.