Barking and jumping

Question
We adopted a rescued sheltie 2 months ago. He is a wonderful, affectionate, intelligent dog and we feel very fortunate.

There are two areas where I would like some guidance. I've checked out various sites for advice but thought some of the methods extreme and not geared specifically to shelties.
Our sheltie, King, barks at everything in the kitchen - the toaster, opening a salad dressing flip top, turning on our gas stove (just forget about running the coffee grinder because then he jumps and barks at my back). Our townhouse is too small to contain him outside or in a room where he would not hear the sounds - besides that doesn't seem like a real solution.  He also barks at other dogs, cats, birds, people (except he doesn't bark at little children for some reason). I quiet him and have him sit beside me, reassure him and gently hold his mouth closed. Then reward him with "good dog", etc. but as soon as I stop, he resumes barking.

And the next thing is he likes to jump on you to greet you - sort of hard and nudging you with his nose - right in your chest if he can reach it. It doesn't really bother me but I can see how others might find it impolite and possibly frightening.

I appreciate any advice or resources you would suggest in learning how to make King more socially adapted.
Thank you so much, Mary
PS I don't know much about his prior environment.

Answer
Mary:

Thank you so much for rescuing a Sheltie! I am so proud of you!  Is King his new name or his old name?  If it is the original name, let's give him a new one in case there is any lingering resentment or associations with the old name.  

It seems that you have 2 basic problems to correct, and let's address those:

1)Jumping to greet.  Let's approach this from a control aspect.  If you are coming home you should be releasing him from his oversized crate, placing a collar on him, and going out to do business.  

I don't know the situation he came from, so you may be able to just use a dog collar-if he does not "pull you" while on it.  If he does, you should try a choke collar.  If he pulls or resists your commands at all on it you MUST USE A PRONG COLLAR.

You might be leery of using a prong collar, but this is a case of humanizing the dog.  Their neck muscles are much stronger than ours, and they have a double coat of very thick fur.  The momma dog bites the pup to discipline for a reason, it makes non-harmful contact to reinforce "no". The prong is a very useful short term tool communicate what is bad to the dog.  You only use it while training, and the dog will love learning and pleasing you.   I highly recomend buying the book "Dog Perfect" by Sarah Hogsdon for reference on how to crate train and use a training collar.

2) Barks at everything:  I took a polaroid of my Possum when he was a wee pup.  Scared the crap out of him... and now he barks at blenders (just the pitch of the blender glass hitting the dishwasher is enough to spaz him out) vaccums, brooms, cameras, etc...  we call him the Amish dog because he seems to despise technology.

My best advice is to crate him during mealtimes.  Purchase a bark collar (once again, use as you would the prong collar-only during durations where you want to control barking or until barking is no longer a problem).  Also give him rawhides, flavored rawhides, pigs ears or something else to do while you prepare dinner and eat.  A good pigs ear is worth about 20 minutes of uninterruped silence from a Sheltie.

He needs lots of exposure to other dogs and people in social situations with the prong collar in place (after he is used to it and you have established basic heel commands).  Exposure should help with the barking... but I think he just wants to heard or play with everything he sees.  Get a ball or frisbee... give King a job to do for you and let's see what happens.  Take him shopping with his new control collar and let's let him pick out a toy and a flavor preference for chew toys.

Shelties are hard workers and want to please.  Without goals they are bored and will act out.  Give them chew toys and "jobs" and they are very well adjusted dogs.

'sneezes
Dave

PS: I highly recomend a seat belt for the dog... try the pet super store near you.