# teach them to speak.



## matt1970lemans (Mar 1, 2007)

My dog now is year old.How Do I get this done?I have taught him not to bark like nuts,I hate it when the neighbors dogs bark and bark and bark so he will not.I can take him out and the neighor's dog runs to the fence and barks he will just look at him.Its cool.There is a time though when I want him to bark and he just looks at me as if to say" can I".


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## tibvixie101 (Nov 26, 2007)

mya doesnt "speak" on command either, i cant seem to figure out how to convince her its ok if i tell her to, but nothing has worked... 

She only barks when someone knocks at the door once i tell her "enough" she backs off and into a down stay so i can open the door and invite our guest in.

She does at least a dozen different tricks but im with you on how to get them to speak on command..


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## Sashmom (Jun 5, 2002)

I never could get Sash to "speak" today, at age 8 though hes quite vocal, he will growl, grumble, whine LOL! I never could teach him to "speak" though he would look at me like I was nuts.


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## kr_egan (Jul 19, 2007)

I found something that Athena _ always_ barked at. In our case, it was us jumping up and down (I don't know why, she's a strange dog). So we jumped and jumped and if she barked, we'd mark it ("Yes", "Good") and treat her. Then, we added "Speak" right after we jumped, then stopped jumping and just said "Speak" and then we added the hand command (All her tricks are done by hand command eventually)

Took me about 2 days to get to the final step


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## DrDoom (Nov 7, 2007)

Yeah, I definitely would want to control my GSD's barking, but there are definitely situations I'd WANT him to bark!


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## Elmo's Mom (May 21, 2007)

I'm glad nobody suggested this, so I'll stop you if it crosses your mind. Barking at your dog will not work. I tried this for 2 days. hehe. Then, I did what was suggested above. I found something that made Elmo bark. I gave him treats and praised him when he did that. For us, it was sitting next to the window and watching cars or people go by. It only took him 10 minutes to make the connection that if he "spoke" he got a treat! Then, I added a command for speak. It's so cute sometimes he has all of the enthusiasm and makes the mouth movement as if he is about to bark and no noise comes out. He looks around like I stole his voice or something. 

Our little guy is very vocal too. He growls, moans, grunts, and whines. You can always tell what he's thinking or if he is doing something he doesn't want to do.


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## Shannon923 (Jan 7, 2008)

I'm going to bring this back up...I have been trying to teach Beau to Speak on command, and it's not working out!

I can't seem to find anything that makes him bark! The only thing he barks at is my husband coming into the bedroom in the dark, or when it's just Beau and I in the room, and this seems to be a protective/aggressive behavior, so we don't want to encourage it. 

I'm in need of some other suggestions! Or could it be that he just wont be capable of learning this command?


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## rmay (Mar 22, 2007)

What worked for me was to get a treat or toy and kind of tease Lucy with it till she got frustrated and started to bark. I also barked at her and kept repeating "speak" till she barked and then gave her the treat or toy. I don't know if my barking helped or not, but it didn't hurt. I got her to howl just by howling myself. Now we do howling duets, (till my wife yells at us to stop).


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: bsinghVAI'm glad nobody suggested this, so I'll stop you if it crosses your mind. Barking at your dog will not work. I tried this for 2 days. hehe. Then, I did what was suggested above. I found something that made Elmo bark. I gave him treats and praised him when he did that. For us, it was sitting next to the window and watching cars or people go by. It only took him 10 minutes to make the connection that if he "spoke" he got a treat! Then, I added a command for speak. It's so cute sometimes he has all of the enthusiasm and makes the mouth movement as if he is about to bark and no noise comes out. He looks around like I stole his voice or something.



We found that one night while watching a TV show that had dogs barking in it, Camper was listening and very alert. So Dh barked a few times (staccato, high pitched barks), then Camper began to bark at him, with the same staccato high pitched barks. As soon as Camper began to bark, I marked it "Speak!" and gave him a favorite treat. Then Dh would bark, then Camper, which I marked Speak! and followed with a treat, etc. So I think it is possible to bark at your dog and teach him, BUT he has to be in the perfect state of mind. 

In "Culture Clash," Jean Donaldson explains an easier way. Use the doorbell.You need two people (though I suppose you could do it with one). One inside with the dog. The other outside. Tell the dog Speak (or Bark). As soon as the outside person hears that command, they ring the doorbell (or knocks on the door). Your dog barks. Then you show him a giant wonderful treat, tell him Quiet (or whatever word you use) and quiet him down (have your friend come into the house too, so he knows it's not a terrible intruder outside). Repeat a lot.

Soon your dog will realize this is a wonderful game. 

Keep doing this until your dog Quiets down as soon as you tell him without being bribed by being shown the treat (although you should reward him for being quiet). Then you should be able to phase out ringing the doorbell and just using your command word Speak. Reward all good responses to commands

Your goal, Donaldson says, is to be able to yo-yo your dog from barking to quiet and back again. Then you can quiet your dog when the UPS guy rings, and you can have your dog bark like mad when you see unsavory people walking up your driveway.

I want a single utterance for "Speak" as opposed to barking. If you train for Bark as full-on barking, then you can clip that by either quieting him sooner or training Speak separately. Once the dog knows that Barking can be something you want, it's easier to finesse for exactly what you want. 

Does that help? 

One thing -- a dog that has learned Speak (or Bark), will often try to bark at you when he wants something (because sometimes you reward that behavior, right?). Once he knows the trick, don't ever reward Request Barking. It's cute at first. But you don't want to reward it because it can become a problem behavior. Ignore it. Or, if your dog is insistent, you may even have to tell him "no." I only let my dog bark at me when I ask him to.


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## nathalie1977 (Sep 4, 2006)

I used her food. Basically kept her away from her RAW meal (she's only fed once a day) and frustrated her, hot dog pieces in hand. When she'd whine out of frustration, I'd say speak! If she made noise, I gave her a hot dog. She finally got so frustrated that she barked, so I rewarded her with part of a chicken back from her bowl. After about 4-5 more attempts, each time that she barked she got something from the bowl, so she finally associated speak with barking, and once she did it exactly on command I fed her.


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## mmmontgomery (Jul 13, 2004)

Bayla has 2 versions of speak. One is the usual bark and I taught it with treats - pretty much the same way as Nat. My favorite though is "soft speak," which is my term for what GSDs do naturally when they "huff" before they build up enough steam for a bark. It is so funny, and all I had to do was reward the behavior and give it a command. Now it's one of her absolute favorite commands but she'll try to get away with just crinkling her nose. Very funny.


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## LUV_GSDs (Oct 22, 2006)

I never could teach my first dog to speak ... the whole family tried for over 13 years. NOW, I have one that never shuts up. She will do big speak and little speak and say "Herrrllloooww" or could be "I Love You" without even a treat reward. Be careful what you wish for


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## KTM450SX (Dec 28, 2007)

Lol, our old black lab we just held our hand up all claw like and said speak..he would flip out and bark. After awhile though he would do every trick he knew before being asked including barking like a maniac if he thought he was getting a treat.


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## travis_gsd27 (Nov 5, 2005)

Honestly, the way Ive taught Travis is simply saying "Say ruff!" He still doesnt do it 100% but he's getting the idea. I think he gets frustrated with me sitting there saying "Say ruff!" and he finally barks at me because he doesnt know what Im asking him to do. It's been pretty effective so far.


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## Dogrunner (Oct 27, 2006)

I'm just trying to teach the Maltese to shut up....


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## Nina (Jun 5, 2007)

My past dog would say please for her dinner. Can't really remember how it started, but other times I would tell her to talk, and she'd bark. I have been trying with pup here but as yet nothing.


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