Any advice please to stop our dogs barking at people and dogs going past our hedge. We have tried squirting them with a water pistol but that doesnt work.
I don't think you can, as I picture your set up. Dogs are in their territory and a potential intruder approaches, they bark and potential intruder goes away, so they have won and kept you all safe.
Very hard to do. Self rewarding (as above) and sounds like ingrained. It's hard to train a dog to do/not do anything if you're not there with it at the time.
I can sympathise with this! The room our dogs sleep in backs onto a little road and lots of dog walkers wander up past the farm. My dog barks at every one. Obviously i don't sleep in the utility room myself so cant do much about it but its very annoying. However I do know no-one is likely to break in!