Teaching a dog to bark (so I can teach him "quiet")

 I have never heard of teaching a dog to bark to teach him 'quiet.'  You don't teach a dog to not do something; you teach them TO DO something.  So when he is barking, if you don't want him to continue, you send him to get a toy, send him to sit in his bed, ask for a sit or lie down, etc.

 

Teaching a dog to do something on command, like a bark, then teaching it quiet is a pretty common training technique. I taught bark by using a "woof!" And having my dogs mimic me. It sounds silly but most dogs get it fast. The quickest way I have taught it is by having them do it for their dinner. The teach them a quieter bark, i go "shhhhhh!" In a quiet voice and using my body language to indicate the shhh. Dogs are good mimics and will pick it up quickly. Don't forget to use food rewards for positive reinforcement, or a special toy if your dog isn't food motivated.

Eta: i have also taught dogs to pick up a toy when they are major barkers. since barking is sometimes self rewarding it can be hard to quiet a dog down. So, I trained the dog to get a toy. The dog still barked through the toy but it was more tolerable.

This is a pretty good description, by Karen Pryor, of the method.

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/237

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll try the "woof" method first, since Boone doesn't do a lot of barking unless it's a situation where I don't want him barking, and a poor training opportunity.  Once I get him to bark on command, I think I'll be able to teach him a command to not bark.  I hope.  :)

 

JackieG

This is a pretty good description, by Karen Pryor, of the method.

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/237

Thanks for sharing that Jackie. In all the reading I'd done, I'd never seen it explained quite that way. I'm going to have to try it.

Up until now, I've had some success with just calling Shane to me and saying "shhh" and treating as he stayed quiet. He's a huge attention barker and although I've tried to ignore him, it's pretty difficult. I think that there's been enough random reinforcement from others (DH and visitors) that he feels that if he just persists long enough, loud enough or close enough to your face, he'll get attention