After completing the daedric quest "A Daedra's Best Friend" long ago, I was unable to recruit an animal follower due to Barbas being still classified as a follower. I didn't killed Barbas and got the "Masque of Clavicus Vile".

That didn't bothered me until Dawnguard came out. Huskies, death hounds and armored trolls look amazing, yet I can't get them cause of that glitchy dog.

Is there any possible way to permanently remove Barbas as a follower(console/mod/creation kit/anything), or at least make huskies, death hounds and armored trolls recruitable? I'm using the pc version.

That's weird. I never had that problem. Then again, I never make use of followers either.

In the console:
set playerfollowercount to 0

edit: was answered above