It doesn't help that we have a 15 month old baby that is trying to sleep during this time, or that we have wood floorboards that Archie slips on in his high state of excitement.

In an ideal world, we would have 'treated' his postman hysteria and gone on to be happy families, but that isn't always as easy as it sounds. We love The Dog Whisperer show, but his techniques haven't quite worked for us, as you will see in the video.

Archie can be near comatose on the lounge when the faint rumble of the motorbike can be heard, and he is instantly in high alert excitable mode.

We have of course restrained Archie, got him to sit, think about what he is doing etc. Not given him treats while he is in this unstable mode etc, but very little seems to work long term. We can keep him in a whining sitting mode for a while, but when we move away it will always graduate to barking.

In this video I ham it up with Archie as he waits at the doors. the baby was not in the house during the filming, so I thought I would talk it through with Archie for the camera.

Curiously Archie is usually most excited about deep truck and tram rumbles. A car or light truck or even trains sometimes do not take his interest. The main reason why this one particular scooter sets him off is its proximity to the side of our house and that the postman rides down this narrow lane the entire length of the house. It's like he is casing the yard, and we all know how many dogs like to protect the property. That said, if anyone comes into our yard, Archie is just incredibly social with them (usually).

Invariably we have given up after we have suppressed his barking and just let him out the back door. Almost invariably the baby wakes up crying at this moment.

One day Archie, one day.