teach them to speak.

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).

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.

Click to expand...

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.

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