Teaching To Speak On Command

[dogmatic]

When I was younger, late one night, a friend and I were having a leak in some bushes behind a business-house. Suddenly, in the silence, there was an enormous "WOOF!" less than a metre away, and we turned around startled, desperately trying to do up our flies. It was the nightwatchman with an enormous grin, and his dog. I thought "Wow! I want a dog that can do that."

When my older dog was a puppy, we lived in a house with a possum up the tree directly outside the back door, about six or seven meters away. At an early age, she had learned the command, "Enough!" to stop barking and settle down, although the possum still bothered her and she would get agitated and bark every time we'd open the backdoor. She'd still be restrained by the fly-screen door. I knew when she was about to bark, and started to use the command "Speak!" the moment before she would bark, then "Enough!" Sometimes I'd walk away from the backdoor, and she quickly learned to associate the command "Speak!" with a bark at the backdoor. I tried it in other situations, and found that there needed to be some sort of stimulus that she would naturally bark at, otherwise she would turn and bark at me. :)

Unfortunately, there were never many situations where I found it safe to encourage her to bark. More the opposite where I would discourage her from barking. We never really perfected the speak command, and, on the command "Speak!" without something real to bark at, she invariably turns to me with an excited but slightly muffled "Woof!" She will let fly if I say "Speak!" and there is really something there.

What have I done wrong? :)

[pepe001]

I keep an eye out and predict when the dog will bark and slip a speak command in and hand signal just before the bark comes out. Then reward.

It was easy for my new pup as he always barks at himself in mirrors so I just plonked him in front of the mirror and waited with a clicker.

[dogmatic]

I've often wondered what hand-signal the nightwatchman used. He certainly made no sound before his dog scared the daylights out of us. Is there a standard signal? That would be really cool.

Edited November 21, 2013 by dogmatic

[pepe001]

I have seen two signals used - a rabbit ears and wiggle the ears (hold fist up with palm facing the dog and straighten two fingers and wiggle fingers towards dog and hold a fist with fingers towards dog and explode fingers out like a star. I use the first one. No idea why or where I got it from.

[dogmatic]

pepe001, Thanks. They sound great. I like the idea of the second one. A fist to get the dog's attention, then "WOOF!"

[tikira]

We taught tip to speak by the command and the exploding fist hand signal when he was about to bark.... the hilarious thing was he would "whisper" his bark, and we then had to invent a signal to get it louder... I guess we accidentally rewarded the soft bark :D . but it did make a good party trick.

Di

[BlackJaq]

Foxy kind of knows this one, but she does a few "dry runs" before an actual sound comes out...

We've also encouraged our dogs to be quiet from the start so I guess when I was teaching her I got kind of desperate and started to reward even non attempts, like opening and closing her mouth... Hmm yea so she just kinda barks but completely without any sound once or twice and eventually she will let out a real bark. After that first one, continued asking will receive real barks.... Just not that first time....

I am hoping this will improve with practice. I ask her to do it in town and other random places, as long as I don't feel like we are bothering anybody. Obviously I wouldn't tell her to bark in the middle of dog training or whatever, but learning to do it around distractions is great, she seems to skip the silent barks sometimes if there is lots of activity around her and in that case I give her a jackpot reward. Hopefully she will catch on soon.

[Cleo's Corgwyn]

My dogs are TV watchers, so I played youtube videos that she barked at (mostly other dogs making noise) and marked and rewarded for her barking back. She picked this up pretty quickly. I also use the fingers flashing out of a fist signal, as well as 'Speak' as a cue.

[Lisey]

I've been trying this but not much luck. Booker rarely barks! Which is a good thing most of the time, but I want to teach this.

I've tried a few things to get him to bark but nothing works. Any suggestions?

[BlackJaq]

Foxy grunts and moans when I rub her tummy so that is what I started with. Eventually it worked up to a bark. Which was a bummer, because I was actually trying to get her to "sing" i.e. make that groanie noise haha

[Cosmolo]

I used free shaping to get one of mine to bark on command. Was a long process but really interesting.

[Lisey]

I've tried holding toys/food and teasing him, knocking on the front door, trying to bark myself.... Lol nothing...

[Kirislin]

I've taught 2 of my whippets to speak on command and whippets aren't usually a vocal breed. I was lucky though Penny and her son Puck tend to bark if they're excited and I capitalised on that.

[BlackJaq]

Is there anything that he will produce any kind of sound at?

Going through this with OH's dog atm... Short of firing a gun I cannot seem to make him produce any noise at all (he is gun shy and will bark at this but I do not want to encourage this in any way, shape or form as he drives me totally bananas when I am shooting within hearing of the house as he will not stop unless someone is there to interrupt the behavior and he drives away all the game! )

I will be trying to let him watch the other dogs do it and get rewarded and hopefully he will either catch on or get frustrated enough to give me something to work with :p

[Lisey]

The only time he is vocal is when he is playing biteyface with Eva - and then it's not barks but weird high pitched noises!

I could count on one hand the number of times he has barked. It's been random each time too.

Actually - he is bloody good at sooking/whinning.

[dogmatic]

i had friend who had to re-locate a possum. they're a protected species. put an ad in the paper; 'wanted, one possum.' :D

i don't know how the professionals do it. they must have some stimulus. a recording of a cat, maybe.

[Poodle wrangler]

Sorry, no brilliant ideas, but I had a standard poodle that I never heard bark for 6 months+

I was home and the dogs were with me a lot.

Seriously!

Might have been because my other, smaller dog did enough barking for both of them?

Now I have a standard that barks too much, so reading this thread with interest.

[poochmad]

I got Jindi to bark by getting her excited and then rewarding her. She loves food so she picked it up pretty quickly.

[Cosmolo]

If they whine and understand the concept of free shaping you can shape it.