Barking
Excessive barking? Dogs bark for a variety of reasons, but on occasions this can be taken to the extreme diisrupting everyone within earshot. What you want to do is have the dog bark to a cue - whether that is the front doorbell, the postman or when they want to go out in the garden to wee. Once they understand about when to bark and when not to bark, it is easier for them to understand what you mean when you ask them to be quiet.
If you are able to make your dog bark, this is great. Do so and then offer him/her a treat. Whether you ellicit the bark with the command of "bark", "speak" or "what do you want" you have made a good start. Inducing barking is not always so easy, so you may need some patience. When the dog barks, reward and give lots of praise. Slowly but surely the dog will begin to learn why you give praise and why they get a treat. In turn they should start to bark more quickly as they learn. Keep working on it until your dog demonstrates that it clearly understands what you want.
The next stage is to teach your dog to stop barking on command. This is commonly more difficult. When your dog barks, actually say "quiet", "no" or "stop". When the dog does eventually go quiet, provide an immediate reward or treat. What may then happen, and don't panic, is that your dog will start barking again. So, go through the process again and repeat rewards and treats when the dog goes quiet. You will need to work on this step until you are certain that your dog understands that not barking will earn your approval. Most importantly, if the barking starts again, go back to the beginning and patiently work through the steps again.
A simple way to see whether your dog really has this licked is to get your dog to bark and then reward. Now lavish praise and get your dog really excited then use the command for him/her to stop barking. If you are really lucky - your dog will remember that there's another treat coming and will be quiet. If not, then keep asking for the barking to stop until this does happen. This latter test must be mastered before you start adding in distractions or starting to teach your dog to bark when the mail arrives or when someone shuts the gate etc.
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