Stopping your Dog from Barking

It may sound counterintuitive, but actually teaching your dog to speak is the first step to getting your dog to stop barking. There are other methods for stopping incessant barking, shock collars, sonic disturbance machines, yelling no, etc. but these methods don’t usually last. Training your incessant barker to “bark” or “speak” and then teaching them “no bark,” “quiet,” or “hush” is a technique that will last. The trainers at TrainPetDog have come up with a few suggestions that should help you accomplish this goal.

Teaching a dog that already barks a lot to “speak” is the easy part. You’ll want to stimulate a bark by inviting a friend over, by knocking on the door yourself, or any other means by which your dog barks. As soon as a bark exits the mouth, give the command, “speak” and praise. When they are quiet again, give the command again, trigger a response and reward. Lather, rinse and repeat until your dog always responds to the “speak” command when asked.

Step one accomplished and now comes the hard part. This is where a friend comes in really handy. As your visitor enters the house, after a few barks (preferably just one) say “good speak” (or other such phrase that reflects praise). Offer a treat, say “quiet” and while they are eating, say “good quiet.” Continue to trigger a bark response with your friend coming and going. A single bark is “good.” An incessant bark is “quiet” followed by a treat and “good quiet.”

It’s important to emphasize the “quiet” with a stern and sharp tone and “good quiet” with a nice calm voice. The idea is to get them to understand that a single bark when someone is at the door is okay (that’s just a good watchdog), but it is better to be quiet when asked because quiet is rewarded with a treat. As time goes on and they understand more, you can begin to remove the treat from the equation and give physical and verbal praise.

At the TrainPetDog websites there are other training methods to stop a barking dog.