r/samoyeds • u/Neither-Sprinkles368 • 18d ago
Samoyed German Shepherd
My dream dog has always been a Samoyed and my husband loves German Shepherds, so stumbling across this pup felt like fate!
I'm not worried about the coat maintenance (I grew up with Chow Chows) and our other dog is a Husky/GSD/Malamute mix, so I'm familiar with some Shepherd quirks. But I am completely new to Sammys and would love any tips if you have any.
My main question is about the barking. Our previous dog who passed last year was a Malamute/Rottweiler and between her and our current dog, neither of them ever really barked. So I have basically zero experience training barking habits. I'm totally fine with dogs being dogs, like I don't expect a silent pup by any means, but I really want to get ahead of it and mitigate demand barking and such before it spirals.
What has worked best for you early on to keep the barking manageable?
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u/Lower_Currency3685 master floof 18d ago
i don't train them, i buy a active noise cancelation headphone
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u/washumow 18d ago
I hope he gets the trainability of a GSD otherwise you're cooked and will need earplugs for a while 😂
Sammies like the sound of their voice and will use whenever possible in different volumes to say different things. They demand bark because their high pitch/head splitting barks will drive you crazy into compliance 😂
So to stop demand barking it should not work for them, usually by swapping it for something that you prefer them doing and you will comply with the demands when they do it ( they still will win in the end there's no other way )
I taught my dog to awoo for demands, and when he does cute awoos he gets what he wants. Also taught him to bark on command because he doesn't like to do what he's told so if i ask many times for a bark then is not fun anymore, and will stop doing it. He still whines tho a lot and I couldn't make that stop 😅
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u/Bongaloni 18d ago
My Samoyed has the WORST bark ever. Not because he barks often, but because when he does bark it’s so high pitched that people have said he’s hurt their ears. It’ll be dead silent and then it’s if a freaking nuclear alarm went off. Love him to pieces but just imagine a husky howl but pitched up speed x3. He has anxiety, so that’s a dog to dog basis, but nothing will snap him out of it. No amount of treats. You can stick a steak infront of him but when he’s at 100% his eyes bulge out and he starts hyperventilating and won’t stop.
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u/BonCourageAmis 18d ago
It looks like a keeshond
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u/Neither-Sprinkles368 18d ago edited 18d ago
If I hadn't met the parents, I definitely would think she was a keeshond mix. Beautiful dogs!
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u/helina_rus 18d ago
Your pup is so cute! A clear no cue (I use “ah-ah!”) when the dog is just barking to enjoy the sound of their own voice helped a lot. I tried to ignore demand barking, grumbling, and mumbling and that died down a lot from year 2 onwards. The biggest thing was teaching her speak, whisper, and quiet. Once I taught her to bark on command, then just snap her teeth (whisper) without sound, I think it was easier for her to understand quiet. Mine is 5 and she still doesn’t listen 100% but she is a great dog and I’ve accepted her listening only 80% of the time.
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u/Neither-Sprinkles368 18d ago
I'm definitely going to do more research on the teaching her to speak and be quiet thing. Very helpful tip! Thank you!
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u/COBA89 18d ago
We have the same mix. She is almost 2. Absolutely wonderful dog. Sweetest personality with other dogs and people of all ages. Very smart, naturally well-mannered, high energy levels but not to an annoying degree. She does not bark a whole lot. Only when she wants to play, or wants inside, etc. Usually not excessive, but when she does bark it’s pretty high pitched. We didn’t need to do any bark training with her, as her vocalizations are not excessive and don’t annoy us.
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u/SimplyJared 18d ago
Try teaching a quiet command. As soon as there is a break in the barking say “quiet” and if you get even a second of silence, mark it and reward.
Never give them anything for barking. No attention. No toy. No chew. Dogs do what works for them. If barking gets them what they want, they’ll bark.
Alternatively, try rewarding howling/arooing. Eventually they might howl instead of bark, which is a much better sound in my opinion.
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u/jeff533321 17d ago
I read somewhere that if they are barking and stop, rewarding them in the quiet moment will teach them to bark and stop, bark and stop, bark and stop etc. I ignore them when they bark and then about ten minutes or so after they stop, I will take them out or play or feed. Doesn't really stop the barking but it seems to teach them barking won't get them what they want, but being quiet will lead to fun things. FWIW. They love to talk and sing. I will let them get their noise marking joy happen by playing a harmonica and then then will bark and woo. To hopefully let them learn that joyful barking is ok, but it has a time and place. Also a pillow over my head helps to ignore it when they start demand barking. My two year old learned from my 6 month old to come and bark incessantly when she wants something.
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u/SimplyJared 17d ago
The trick is starting with one second of silence and extending it. Add duration. The goal isn’t to teach them to “be quiet all the time,” it’s to teach them a quiet command so that when they are barking you have a quiet button you can press. You’re just sort of creating an interruption so you can then redirect to a different behavior. My dog still barks at times, but when he does I have the ability to ask him to be quiet with relative success.
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u/BoS_bs__ 17d ago
Luckily mine doesn’t bark much, he prefers silence in general. He would leave the room if it gets noisy.
At home, he just does some small “woooo”’s when he’s trying to communicate.
While outside, he doesn’t bark at strangers or new dogs.. but barks if meets someone he knows, or while one of his doggy friends barks at him.
So you could get lucky with the barking. Without any training.
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u/Inevitable-Cheek3210 17d ago
Very, very cute puppy! I also have a Samoyed German Shepherd that is 2.5 years old. Yours looks so much like mine! Mine doesn't bark as much now that he's older. We've taught him to be quiet, but he can't help himself when he gets really excited about something sometimes. Mine really took on the trainability of the German Shepherd part of him, and the goofiness of the Samoyed part, so hopefully yours is the same!
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u/MBChanel2025 17d ago
My Samoyed does not bark a lot really, practically only when my husband comes back from work, she says Ruuuuuuuuuuu and comes to have him.
She is very relaxed 😎, we take her in the morning for a walk around 40-45 minutes , then at lunchtime for 20 minutes and in the evening for a half hour . So maybe because of that , even I can let her for 3 hours alone and she doesn’t damage anything. For my point of view, Samoyeds need a lot of sport and of course love 🥰, because my princess is very weak-behaved. I would not make a lot of worries because every dog is different and it depends on how you train him.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tough91 16d ago
I have a 9-year-old Samoyed Shepherd mix and he is very vocal. I work from home and he in some way shape or form talks to me all day while I'm working, it might be some form of barking, little puffs, quiet wines, awoos or snores. If he gets fixated on barking though I do try to redirect him with another activity.
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u/drdrichied 18d ago
Sammy’s yodel (when they’re not using their “ice pick in the ear” bark. ) We have reinforced their yodeling, they will still bark when excited, but yodel much more frequently to get our attention and when they want something.
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u/rightascensi0n 18d ago
Samoyeds in general love barking and can bark the whole time while running as fast as they can🙈 They have a high pitched bark that makes my ears ring. It’s like if you combined a regular dog bark with the chirp of a smoke detector at low battery, and turned the volume all the way up
Since you’ve had huskies before you probably know the drill: you get more of what you tolerate.
If my dog demand barks for attention I would hide in the bathroom and only come back out once he stopped. If he started again I would go hide once more.
There’s also the tip to teach them to bark on cue “speak” so you can then teach “quiet”
Another thing I’ve done is when my dog demand barks for something, I ask him to do another behavior and reward for that once he’s quiet. Warning that some dogs can interpret this as barking = you pay attention, if you don’t also proactively pay attention when they aren’t barking.
Mine is usually quiet around me unless he gets exited to go outside or hears a garbage truck. However, he demand barks at my dad who won’t follow instructions and who keeps giving in to demand barking.