Hi again dog lurvers!!!! as the title suggests, I have a problem in that i would like to add to my lil Sasha's bag of tricks by teaching her to bark on command..... trouble is shes probably barked 5 times since i've had her!! Although when she has barked shes recieved a good girl token (biscuit) and a pat on the chops..... hasn't happend enough to create enough significance though, any ideas anyone? I realise this is probably what people see as bliss hehe. oh and the crate training from my past post has worked wonders, shes got her crate now, although doesnt use it at all, yet has stopped fouling the kitchen!!?? im thinkin shes bin readin or listening to me reading out loud bout the idea of locking her in.... :rolleyes:

I'm no expert, but I've read somewhere that you have to reward even the slightest sound to begin with, just a faint whimper or whine probably. Then over time you wait until the whimper gets louder and gradually becomes a bark. The real experts will know better than me though! :-)

What happens if you get a really tasty treat, show it to her, then pretend to eat it?  Usually the frustration of that is enough to get a dog to bark - have you tried that one?

My dogs' bark:

when the door knocks
when the kids come in from school
when anyone comes down the stairs!
when the birds are in the tree
when said birds fly over our garden - how very dare they!
when the post arrives
when standing talking to someone at the door
when someone walks past too close to the door
when anyone next door is in their garden

I'm now in the process of trying to stop all this, and one of them, mentioning no names, is the instigator :rolleyes: but she is so gobby - or vocal - that its very hard. None of them have ever been encouraged to bark, and being large dogs their bark is very deep and loud!

My dog barks at all those things too plus a few more! My greatest wish would be for him to just SHUT UP sometimes!!!:)

Be very thoughtful about teaching a nice quiet dog to bark. I did teach my cocker spaniel to howl at the moon but for sure, I'm mainly teaching the gobby little chap I have now to shut up!!!

My thoughts exactly, it would have to be done consistantly or the little chap will think barking is great and do it constantly.

Hello there,

My puppy (11 months) hardly ever barks at all. She does 'wuff' if she/me is surprised, and she 'chats' by yowling and grunting sometimes when she's happy. I've got to be honest that I think it's a godsend as my previous dog used to bark at everything and anything and it was a total pain for us and our neighbours so I wouldn't consider encouraging her to bark.

Could I just ask why you want to teach her to bark? I dunno, but maybe if you teach her to bark on command then she's more likely to bark on her own accord as well (which you may not like so much)? Does anyone who is more experienced than me know if this is true?

I would say this i a tricky one if not trained properly you could end up with the opposite to your quiet dog I am not brave enough to attempt this hope you manage it:).

If you don't want to create a gobby dog:

Once you've got the dog barking, ONLY reward the dog (with attention, a treat etc) when you have ASKED for the bark.  Any other time the dog barks, ignore it.

Teach a "quiet" command which you also reward, after teaching the bark command.  That way you can switch it off too!

In my experience, it's rare for a dog which just doesn't bark much naturally to suddenly discover that barking is great when you train it.  Usually these dogs bark just as little as before. 

thankyou all, i was sure this would be a great subject :o))), although i got her to bark today, just a quick 'wooof' when i chucked water on her at the local pond, of which she made her 1st attempt to jump in to get a swan!!! trouble was i had her on a lead so she doubled back....n wont go in now grrrr, give it a month:o)))....

If you want to train your dog to bark on command the best way of doing it with a reluctant barker is to create some frustration, generally speaking this works well at feeding times by holding the food out of the way until the dog gets so frustrated it barks you then immediately reinforce by giving the food.  If you do this at all feed times, the dog will learn to do this very rapidly and then you can put a cue to the behaviour, once established it is important to also reward shutting up by doing the same and then put that on cue and then you can turn barking on and off at will........... ;)  Very useful