# How do I: Speak? Bark on command?



## ripsofie (Oct 28, 2010)

I wan to teach my 6.5 month gsd , Preston, to bark on command. He is very smart and catches on very quickly to anything I teach him. I just dont know how to go about this.

He barks often when he sees or hears something when he is outside, (Almost to often)...I dont want to reward this behavior and pair it with a word because I am worried that will make him think I want him to bark all the time. (Which I don't! lol) "When I bark I get a treat.. okay!...Woof woof!" lol. 

I can't get him to bark when I tease a treat/toy. 
So I dont know how to teach this without enforcing wrong behavior..?


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## ripsofie (Oct 28, 2010)

Mrs. K said this----
*Indicator "Barking" Question* 
So I am trying to teach Indra to bark as indication but if there is one thing I suck at it is to get my dogs to speak. The only way to get them to bark is when I knock on the wall or the table because they think somebody is at the door. I've tried everything. From Food to howling & barking videos. It just doesn't work. 

If I reward her for the barking once I knock on the table wouldn't I reward the behavior to bark at the door instead of the bark itself? 

Does that make sense? ----

This is exactly what I mean.


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## ayoitzrimz (Apr 14, 2010)

You could frustrate him. Here's what I mean: I taught my dog by holding a toy up so he can't get to it and teasing him with it. Eventually, simply out of pure frustration he'd bark once. I immediately gave him the toy, played for a little while, then had him out it and do it again. I did about 3 times before he started to bark as soon as I started to tease him. Then I attached the command. So at this point I held the toy up like before and say "bark" once. He'll bark and I'd give him the toy. Rinse and repeat


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

i taught my last GSD to bark. i would have my dog sit.
i sit in front of him (face to face). while holding a treat
i would bark and i would say "bark" to my dog. once he
barked i would treat him. i did this over and over untill he barked.


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## Miss Molly May (Feb 19, 2010)

doggiedad said:


> i taught my last GSD to bark. i would have my dog sit.
> i sit in front of him (face to face). while holding a treat
> i would bark and i would say "bark" to my dog. once he
> barked i would treat him. i did this over and over until he barked.


 
Ha ha this is how I taught molly!!!! Once she caught on I would repeat bark bark bark to have her bark a few times in a row then threw in a quiet command. This work great because I not only taught here to speak but taught her quiet!

Just use a tonne of valuable treats!


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## smdaigle (Mar 14, 2008)

Right or wrong I taught Retta and Rex to bark by using the door knock as stimulus. It didn't take many repetitions before they caught on and would speak on command or with a simple hand gesture. It was the first "trick" I taught Retta beyond basic obedience. Rex caught on extremely quickly and it was funny because his real bark was a deep "I mean business" kind of bark. His speak bark was high pitched and kind of girlie. 

We've had no success teaching this to Rennie. We've tried everything including the door knock, trying to frustrate her into barking, even trying to get her to mimic us. She licks her lips when we do any of these things so we joke that we can make her lick her lips on command. 

I haven't tried teaching Ridley to speak yet but I'm hopeful it will be pretty easy.


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

what hand gesture do you use for speak???



smdaigle said:


> Right or wrong I taught Retta and Rex to bark by using the door knock as stimulus. It didn't take many repetitions before they caught on and would speak on command or with a simple hand gesture. It was the first "trick" I taught Retta beyond basic obedience. Rex caught on extremely quickly and it was funny because his real bark was a deep "I mean business" kind of bark. His speak bark was high pitched and kind of girlie.
> 
> We've had no success teaching this to Rennie. We've tried everything including the door knock, trying to frustrate her into barking, even trying to get her to mimic us. She licks her lips when we do any of these things so we joke that we can make her lick her lips on command.
> 
> I haven't tried teaching Ridley to speak yet but I'm hopeful it will be pretty easy.


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## Wolfiesmom (Apr 10, 2010)

doggiedad said:


> i taught my last GSD to bark. i would have my dog sit.
> i sit in front of him (face to face). while holding a treat
> i would bark and i would say "bark" to my dog. once he
> barked i would treat him. i did this over and over untill he barked.


This is how I taught all my dogs, and my kid's dogs to speak on command. They all had it mastered as young pups. I have been doing this with Wolfie since we had him, and for the life of me, I can't get him to speak on command. :headbang::headbang:


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## smdaigle (Mar 14, 2008)

doggiedad said:


> what hand gesture do you use for speak???


Index finger pointing up. I have no idea why we used that but we started it 18 years ago!


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## ripsofie (Oct 28, 2010)

Thanks everyone! I will put it all to work in a little bit! : )


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## Shadow's mum (Mar 13, 2010)

My son did the tease thing, hold the toy just out of reach. Shadow barked once, he said "good girl BARK" and she got a reward. He did this several times, she now has it down pat.
He then went on to teach her "guard" same thing only much more barking. She knows the difference, between words.

Every now and then though she isn't in the mood and will just mouth a bark, with no sound, it's kinda funny. Whats funnier though is when she does this, yawns and lays down. She knows she's being funny cause she wags her tail, thump thump thump on the ground.

A hand gesture hasn't been added yet.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

For any sort of teaching I generally make them aware I have a treat they want... for me its usually diced hot dogs (about the size of a pea) and I keep them out of sight. If the reward is in sight the whole time you're really bribing the dog, and there is a tendency to not get the result you want when the bribe isn't present. Toys are a bit too high energy for teaching, particularly with my female 15 month old. Anyway, I present, then it goes in my pocket/treatbag/behind my back... I give the command, then freeze and wait for something... They will inevitably try a few things trying to figure out how to get that treat, so I'll repeat the command a few times, and eventually you'll get a mouth-movement of some kind bc the dog is getting frustraited... I then immediately say "goood geb laut", and then wait a second and then treat. For that I have both dogs present as they tend to notice what the other did that resulted in a piece of hot dog. It only took about 5 minutes to get reliable (>90%) response to the voice command, and then maybe a few seconds to remember what I was asking for the next day.


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## xenos56 (Jan 30, 2011)

We just barked until he did. Used a clicker for the first two barks and then said "speak" a couple of times and he got it. Sometimes you just gotta bark


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## cshepherd9 (Feb 11, 2010)

I used Willow's "I want to go outside" bark as the training key. When she was young it was the only thing that she would bark for so when she went to the door and barked I would stand there with a treat and when she barked I would say "Talk to me" (my command) and gave her a treat. It really only took about 2-3 times of doing this before she caught on.


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## Doggydog (May 12, 2009)

Name it whenever he does it. 
This is by far Jiva's favorite command. She loves to speak.
At about the 4 month point, my daughter discovered that Jiva barked whenever we blew on her ear. So it was very easy... blow on ear, she barked, we said speak and marked the behavior. She learned the word speak very quickly. And she will "air bark" when we hush her to the command quiet bark.


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

cshepherd9 said:


> I used Willow's "I want to go outside" bark as the training key. When she was young it was the only thing that she would bark for so when she went to the door and barked I would stand there with a treat and when she barked I would say "Talk to me" (my command) and gave her a treat. It really only took about 2-3 times of doing this before she caught on.


 
We used basically the same thing. Hondo has marked reactions to various stimulus. When I get up and put on my coat, he gets really excited. At that time I say, "Tell me!" and I make a sign with my hand that looks like a duck quacking. I keep asking him to "Tell Me!" and he would make a whinny noise. With any noise I reward. Now, I can ask him anything.." Should Daddy order a pizza?" and make the hand signal and he'll bark. Mostly though at this point it's a woof sound.

I would caution to this as hubby would get him so excited Hondo started to incorporate jumping on him along with the whinny noise. So if you find this meathod works for you, watch out for that.


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## pfitzpa1 (Apr 26, 2011)

doggiedad said:


> i taught my last GSD to bark. i would have my dog sit.
> i sit in front of him (face to face). while holding a treat
> i would bark and i would say "bark" to my dog. once he
> barked i would treat him. i did this over and over untill he barked.


This worked a treat for me and Maggie. Thanks!

Video at http://youtu.be/TWImNWcndyw


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