5 Steps to Teach a Dog to Not Bark!

Is your dog wanting attention?

Is your dog alerting you to an issue?

Is your dog fearful?

For most dogs it’s fear. They don’t know what the noise is, and they don’t know what is on the other side of the door because they can’t see or smell it. They want you to come and check it out to make sure there is no threat.

Most dogs will respond out of fear unless trained to protect. Some breeds have an intuitive protective side. You need to know your breed, which I will cover in an upcoming article.

#2. You need to decide on a “stop barking command”.

That's every time when you are training your dog to “not” bark. 

For this training, we are going to use the example “quiet”.

#4. Now this will sound totally counter-intuitive, however, you are going to teach your dog quiet at the same time you are teaching your dog the command “bark”.

Let's dig into this a little deeper to help with the understanding and the psychology behind teaching two commands at once to get to the final result you want, which is teaching your dog not to bark.

You are going to start off by teaching your dog TO bark.

I know at this point you're saying why am I teaching my dog to bark when I want my dog to stop barking??

Here's the psychology behind this method.

When you teach a dog a command no matter what it is, in your dog's mind and in your mind, you are teaching a command you want the end result to be, the one thing!

That one thing will either be bark (or whatever word you attach to that command; I prefer the term that the folks in the service dog industry use and that is “speak”).

The reason we start with the command “speak” for teaching “quiet” is so that your dog will only speak on command not randomly barking at the mailman.

Now when you teach your dog to speak then they learn to figure it out in their mind that the only time that it is acceptable for them to bark is when you've given them the command “speak”.

I know this sounds confusing, but stick with me, because here is the magic pixie dust in all of this ( And y'all know how much I love Magic).

When you teach “speak” and “quiet” at the same time your puppy dog will recognize that they can only bark when given the command “speak” and once they “speak” you're giving them the command “quiet”.

This ends the session of barking, at least that’s the goal.

#5. More magic pixie dust

This one is really important. when you teach your dog the command “speak” in the beginning there will be treats, kibble, excitement, verbal “good puppy”, “happy puppy”, plus, smiling faces, and positive reinforcement.

What does that look like?

You are going to create a training session and you are going to set your puppy dog up for SUCCESS!!

If you know about the time frame the mailman arrives every day and your puppy dog goes crazy barking at the noise outside the door you are going to be ready for a training session.

You'll want to have your treats/kibble ready at the wait.

As soon as your dog starts barking at the mailman, you start saying “speak”, “speak”, (two to three times).

Your dog will turn and look at you (like you're crazy) and in that split second, you are going to treat your dog for looking, because this is something you have never done before and now they are curious.

As you continue to do this, they will figure out that the barking is in correlation to the word “speak” and they will get treats/kibble.

Then the next thing you do once you have their attention is say “quiet” but only once and you give them kibble.

When you do this consistently over and over again your puppy dog will intuitively figure out that the only time that they get kibble and treats is when you say “speak” and when you say “quiet”.

What solidifies this is when your dog starts randomly barking again without you saying “speak” and you're like, “What the heck I thought we were making progress?”

Just know they will digress.

You are not going to do any type of corrective procedures, you are going to step right into saying “speak”, “speak”.

That is when they will turn and look at you and that is when you praise, give kibble, give treats, say “quiet” and give kibble, give treats.

Over a couple of days of repeating this process as soon as your puppy dog barks without a command that is when you say “quiet”.

Did you catch the shift there?

Give them a minute because they'll have to process in their little minds, and as soon as they process what you just said, they will look at you and that is when you have a party!!

You make this fun, you make this as if, they just won an Academy Award and the Oscar is a handful of kibble, and yes, do the clapping, and happy smiling face, because they will associate that reward now with the word “quiet”.

Side Note:

You have to be consistent.

You have to put yourself in present moment thought as soon as you hear your dog bark.

That bark should be your wake-up call, pulling you back into present moment thought and the training you want to accomplish in that moment.

So treat the bark like an alarm, like a wake-up call as soon as your dog barks you go into “training mode” and before you know it you will have a dog that will bark on command, will be quiet on command, and will constantly be looking at you for direction.

If you need any other ideas on this topic, or perhaps you need 1 to 1 coaching through this process don’t hesitate to reach out for a chat.

My mission is to assist my clients in creating a loving, harmonious, training bond with their puppy dogs.

Cheers
Patty
Your Intuitive Dog Coach