Hello again,

First off thanks for all of the great advice :) This site really is wonderful!!

Secondly....to my new area of concern. We live on about 4 acres and have 3 cattle dogs. At night, whether they are confined to the side yard, or are able to run free of the whole yard, they bark at what I can only presume to be birds throughout the night. In the early evening and morning they bark at people walking past, and our neighbors have two dogs that wander around sometimes on the street in front of our house and of course our dogs bark at them (they are very "dopey" dogs and don't even seem fazed that our dogs are barking at them!). I have a hard time with yelling at them because a) i'm usually half asleep, and b) I don't want to make them stop barking completely because I do want to know if someone actually enters our yard. So....is there a technique to train dogs to only bark at a person or dog that is actually on the property and then to not bark at birds completely?? I've thought about having a friend walk up and down the street and then praising the dog for the good behavior of not barking, but then I don't quite know how to make them bark once they enter the property. Any thoughts?? Thanks in advance :)