I really enjoy training my dogs. I haven’t spent a lot of time doing focused training with them due to my own mental mindset this year, but my moods picking up and I figured it’s about time to get back to it.
My dog, Auggie, has a problem barking. There’s a few problems to address to tackle that, but I won’t go into those right now. Decided to start training Auggie right away to learn to bark on command, because then I could teach them to stop. In some cases, dogs could also stop barking once it’s a command, because why would you bark for free when you could get rewarded for it? I doubt this will help him too much, but here’s hoping it helps a little more.
Also, can’t have Auggie learning to bark alone & Mila confused with why only Auggie gets rewarded for it, so I’m training her, as well. Though, she’s relatively a certified good girl & only really barks to alert someone at the door.
Anyways, My husband recorded the end of my training with the dogs and I thought it be fun to explain what I’m doing to train them to bark on command. I am doing a bit of a taboo in “overloading” them by constantly repeating the same unknown command to them.
Barking on command is new to them. I’m associating Boof! with a silly muppet talking hand command. They have no idea what the fuck I’m asking for them to do. They only know that I want them to do something for a treat. So of course, they’re going to cycle through their bag of tricks: rolling over, doing full rolls, giving me their paws, slapping objects, jumping, standing up, sitting up in a beg, they’re just so confused that they’re doing everything they can imagine to do in order to figure out what I want from them. None of these tricks are working though, they’re not getting the treat.
I know my dogs, they’re more vocal when they’re discontent with something. They grumble, they make noises. So, at first I give them small treats or affirmations/pets when they’re getting frustrated and making noises. Basically giving them a small clue that “making noise is good”. I withhold treats once they start making small grumbles. Still telling them the same unknown command & agitating them by constantly saying “Do this command you don’t know!” over and over. Now they’re getting pretty frickin’ annoyed with me, still cycling through their other commands. That’s totally okay, but now the small grumbles they’re making that were “in the right direction” isn’t getting rewarded anymore, so this leads to them getting agitated further. They don’t understand what they’re doing to get rewarded. Eventually they get louder and I reward them for it: noise = good. I keep withholding and agitating them and they keep getting slightly louder each time.
Auggie was the first to start “getting it”, they both let me know they were getting impatient and agitated with me. They want that treat, but Auggie finally lost his cool and barked. Yes! Good boy! He got tons of affirmation for it, a full on pet, lots of happiness in my tone, a full treat. I asked him for it one more time, while it was fresh, I got another bark. Fantastic! He’s getting it! He’s happy, too, because he’s finally understanding this new command.
I hope that “monkey see, monkey do” works here, and ask Mila to give me a good Boof!, seeing that Auggie barked and received high praise for it. She’s more reserved so she grumbled a little loud, had moments where she opened her mouth, but it seemed like she wasn’t sure if she was really allowed to bark. We got there in the end though, she gave me a good solid bark, although soft, I rewarded her heavily, had her do one more for me, to reaffirm that was the command.
Moved back to Auggie, repeated the process with him, he’s getting more vocal, grumbling with me, but he gives me a clearer bark now & he gets his reward. He’s definitely understanding it better than Mila is, though he still wants to bypass the command with his head in my lap and him pawing me.
On video, Mila is slowly starting to get it, she’s cycling through her other commands less. I’m still trying to agitate her and praise her for making noise. She needs more coaxing. Finally, we end the session with some clear proud barks. Fantastic progress at the end!
They’re very smart, both food motivated, but training is mentally taxing and even if they got the treats in the end, they need a break from agitation. I give them pets, affirmative Good boy/girl! comments and release them from training, letting them know we’re done.
This whole training took them 10-15 minutes, they made a lot of progress in just one day with an unknown command. I’ll have to revisit this tomorrow to keep it fresh in their mind and see if they remember what to do, or where to go from there. If they’ll need another short focus on it, or if I need to mix in other training with them so they get more ‘wins’/rewards to lessen their frustration of training. In the long run, I don’t want to make them hate this command or always feel frustrated in order to bark. I only wanted to force it out of them and then mark the behavior to let them know it’s okay to get vocal for this training. We want our dogs to be happy & to win. They’re much happier when they’re on the same page and those tails will wag more freely when they know they’re reliably hitting standards & making you happy, as well. Also, treats always help.
For now they’re free to rest. Good puppies.
TL;DR: I pissed off my dog to teach them to bark & rewarded them for it until they started to understand I want them to bark.