Bark on command

Dusty87

Hi ive thought my dog to sit, lie and heel. Im trying to teach him to stay. I find it very rewarding when he Learns to do what i say. I would like to teach him a few unusal tricks that you dont see much like sing and bark. Ive read when a dog learns to bark on command he gets over protective. Is this true and should i forget about this? Any info would be great.
Thanks

andreac

Hi there, i have taught my dog to speak on command and he a rottweiler. He doesnt bark in general so i thought i would teach him in case i do need to get him to bark.

My fella hasnt got over protective in any way, its just another trick i taught him. It can actually be quite good for a dog who is a barker as you can teach them to bark and then be quiet.

The way i taught him was to get him all excited and when he barked i said the word speak and made a sign with with my hand, so when he learned he would do with with either the voice command or the hand sign.

So everytime i was trying to teach him i would have a really nice treat, get him to speak and reward him.

Its a great trick and didnt take him long to pick it up, most rotties will do anything for food and are very clever and my fella picked it up almost straight away.

Good luck and have fun!!

PurpleBerry

Hi Dusty,

I know how you feel, it's very rewarding to see your dog respond to you and understand what you want them to do. I've just started teaching my 6 month old Cavalier and I'm so proud of him.

I find You Tube invaluable for training tips. I always like to check out a few different videos, from different sources, to get a general idea of what's needed, rather than just following one persons method.

Some ideas for things you can teach your dog are:
"High Five" The dog will need to have learned "Shake"(or "Give me the paw") for this.
"Play Dead" or "Bang" For "Bang" you pretend to shoot the dog and s/he plays dead
"Leave It" With this trick you put a treat right under the dogs nose and tell them to leave it. When you decide to let him have the treat by saying "take it" or something similiar the dog then eats the treat.
"Hide" For this trick you teach the dog to put a paw over his/her eyes.
"Speak" This one is pretty obvious, the dog will let out a short bark.
"Bow" Yep, you can teach your dog to take a bow! The dog lowers his/her front to the ground while their butt stays up.

Ultimately anything your dog is physically able to do, and physically comfortable doing, you can teach them to do on command. I also thought about teaching mine to "Sing" but my OH thinks it may hurt his throat so I'll leave off until I'm sure. I've never heard of the "Speak" command causing any behavioural problems. You can find out how to do all of the above tricks on You Tube. I also recommend looking up "clicker training". You may decide not to bother with it but have a look and see if you want to do it or not.

While you're looking up videos, have a look for "Jackson the cavalier" and you should be able to find a video of a 4 month old cavalier doing loads of tricks. Just to show you some of the tricks that can be done with ease.

Best of luck with your training!

00112984

My brother's Samoyed says "Hello"!

Video is on YouTube (can't be embedded, I'm afraid)

I have a Cavalier puppy and she can sit, lie down, take a bow (my favourite), shake hands, give a high-five, jump up, ask for water (not a trick, more a way to ensure she always has water. If she goes to her bowl and empties it, she lays there until I come along and refill it. She's a small dog so she can't reach into a huge bowl and I'm terrified she won't have water), fetch, give a kiss and give a hug. We're currently working on play dead, picking up particular toys by name and roll over.

Themadhouse

Some great idea's for tricks! Thanks guys! We thought our girl couldn't bark so we actively encouraged her to bark on command so she would know it was ok. She does paw, high five, hug, lie down, sit but i was looking for something new because she really enjoys our nightly routine of tricks!

Basq

My 6 month old Yorkie knows 'sit' and that's about it.

We've tried 'paw' but doesn't seem to be grasping it!

Skillie

basquille wrote: »

We've tried 'paw' but doesn't seem to be grasping it!

hold a really smelly tastey treat out in your hand and then close your fingers so your dog can't take it, let him sniff away at it and hopefully out of frustration at wanting it he'll paw at your hand. when he does immediately release it and praise. repeat until the little guy will paw your hand anytime you hold it out and then refine from there. hope this helps.


bark on command is one i must try cos our newfs bark when he does it is very deep and intimidating but he's a sweety so wouldn't do it often. be handy in the right circumstances to be able to ask him to bark.

Basq

Skillie wrote: »

hold a really smelly tastey treat out in your hand and then close your fingers so your dog can't take it, let him sniff away at it and hopefully out of frustration at wanting it he'll paw at your hand. when he does immediately release it and praise. repeat until the little guy will paw your hand anytime you hold it out and then refine from there. hope this helps.

Great technique Skillie... will give it a shot!

Skillie

basquille wrote: »

Great technique Skillie... will give it a shot!

spent long enough failing with the old "give us the paw" hold out the hand and have a treat waiting in the other to find nothing happening. When we started clicker training this was in the guide to basic stuff. the clickers great but will work without it. after 3 years of no paw we had it in 5 mins!!

let us know if it works

Beth

basquille wrote: »

We've tried 'paw' but doesn't seem to be grasping it!

We did it a different way to already described. So if that doesnt work, another way might.

We had smelly garlicky liver treats, his most favourite in the world.
We held one in our hand and picked up his paw with the other hand while putting the liver in his mouth.
We kept doing this over and over and over
It got to the stage that he was expecting paw lift + treat so he started lifting his paw himself. Then we introduced "paw" as a command and reinforced it.

I'm a leftie so I taught him my way. When someone right handed goes to ask for his paw, he was giving his left - not his right.
automatically they would say "ah no, its the other one"
so we repeated the process and introduced ... wait for it.... "other one" as the command for the correct paw to shake hands.

So now if someone asks him for the paw, he'll give the left one. They'll say "ah the other one" and he gives them that one then

Our way might work if the other one doesnt. Different dogs learn the same things through different ways so its handy to know a few different ways.



As for teaching speak, we rewarded the bark and said "speak" when they heard the bell (we were garanteed a bark then!). Don't forget to teach them how to be quiet too - otherwise sometimes they can bark and bark trying to get treats.

when ours got their treat for "speaking", they were told quiet while they were munching. After a while they associated "quiet" with no barking + treat.

We also taught one to "whisper"
He makes all the motions and actions of barking, but there's no sound at all

Discodog

I once taught a boxer to bark - to say please. He soon got the idea & would bark incessantly at feeding time ! Be careful what you wish for !.

rainbowtrout

I taught my dog (jack russell) to turn in a circle this week, again like above i had a treat in my hand, just far enough away that she couldn't get it and got her to follow my hand but moved it so she would have to turn a full circle before getting it. I'm reinforcing it with the command 'twist'. On reflection I should have probably used circle or turn because she was getting sit and twist confused to start with, but she's got it now

Basq

Skillie wrote: »

let us know if it works

Am getting there... slowly but surely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuQsgBozOnE

He's using both paws occassionally instead of one, but it's probably excitement in getting a treat.

Skillie

^^^Outstanding a very proud moment i'm sure, well done

hunterpetz

hi

i have trained all my 11 dogs to bark on command.
my eldest dog is fully agility, obedience & show trained with over 32 commands & she has no trouble learning more & it NOT over protective.
dogs are incredible so do what you are happy with & dont let people talk ya down. i have been training for years now & you can teach a dog almost anything. i have also been involved with SAR (search & rescue) & have my dogs PPC levels. i show & compete almost all the time so im happy to get any excuse for a coffe break & that includes the computor. LOL

star-pants

hunterpetz can you please stop resurrecting old threads, this is just confusing for people because they think it's recent and that the OP is still around waiting for advice.