habituate our dog to a robot lawnmower

[Anonymous]

We have had our new robot lawnmower for about a week and our 7 year old Australian shepherd barks incessantly at it from inside our house. (We have previously encouraged the dog to bark whenever someone approaches the house.) I have to admit that the size and movement of the robot mower does makes it look like a small animal sniffing around the yard. But it has no smell and makes no noise so that I was not expecting our dog to react this strongly, especially looking at it out a window from inside the house.

(Otherwise we love the robot mower)

Any suggestions on how get our dog to ignore the robot mower?

[Anonymous]

Desensitizing training/exposure therapy. Take the dog out to the yard, on leash, and walk closer and closer to the robot mower, praising your dog for correct behavior. Walk away and walk back as needed. You may need to repeat this several times a day over several days, but aussies are smart and catch on quick (they're also kinda noisy, so good luck!)

Never teach/allow barking until/unless your dog has a "quiet" command.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Desensitizing training/exposure therapy. Take the dog out to the yard, on leash, and walk closer and closer to the robot mower, praising your dog for correct behavior. Walk away and walk back as needed. You may need to repeat this several times a day over several days, but aussies are smart and catch on quick (they're also kinda noisy, so good luck!)

Never teach/allow barking until/unless your dog has a "quiet" command.

OP here. Thanks for the advice. We will try it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have had our new robot lawnmower for about a week and our 7 year old Australian shepherd barks incessantly at it from inside our house. (We have previously encouraged the dog to bark whenever someone approaches the house.) I have to admit that the size and movement of the robot mower does makes it look like a small animal sniffing around the yard. But it has no smell and makes no noise so that I was not expecting our dog to react this strongly, especially looking at it out a window from inside the house.

(Otherwise we love the robot mower)

Any suggestions on how get our dog to ignore the robot mower?

Can you give your dogca frozem kong otlr go for a walk when you are using it?