Teach your dog to bark to order

If you no longer know how to prevent your dog from barking, an alternative to controlling their barking consists of putting that behavior in order .The idea behind this strategy is to perfect the inappropriate behavior, so that it only happens when you give the order, however, that can only be achieved in very strict training conditions, rare in everyday life, and in some special cases, so it is unlikely that your dog will stop barking only thanks to this training strategy.

However, if you will gain control of the barking because you can ask your dog to stop.Therefore, teaching your dog to bark to order can help you when your dog barks in response to a particular stimulus (for example when the bell rings), if he learned to bark to get things (for example or if it barks for you to give it food) and, in some cases, if it barks for a lot of enthusiasm.p>

Get your dog to bark to order

Since your dog is a barker, you already know some stimuli or some situations that cause their barking .You know if your dog barks when the bell rings the door, when he listens to ambulance sirens, when he hears people walking on the other side of the street door, when you put the leash to go for a walk, etc.

Make the stimulus that causes the barking occur for your dog.For this you may need an assistant.For example, your assistant rings the doorbell, or knocks on the door, or walks on the other side of the door, etc.

If your dog barks in response to sounds like ambulance sirens, record the sound of a movie or a YouTube video to be able to play it at will, although in that case you may not have a barking dog problem.Some dogs bark when they are whispered, as if one were attentive to some danger and wanted to alert the dog without alerting "the enemies." n, or howl when you howl or make high-pitched sounds.

Whatever stimulus you use, make your dog bark.When your dog barks once or twice (no more), do click and give a bit of food appetizing.The moment you do click , the stimulus that causes the barking disappears.

Repeat the procedure several times, until your dog starts barking frequently after taking his little piece of food or playing a few seconds with his toy.At this point you will be sure that your dog will bark again and you can start using the order " Ladra ".

Then, use the command" Ladra " just before your dog barks.If possible, the Stimulus that causes the barking should start immediately after you give the order.For example, your friend knocks on the door again or knocks on the doorbell just after you say "Bark." Of course, the stimulus stops again when you click .

Gradually not so that your dog begins to bark when you give the order.Even before the stimulation that originally caused the barking begins.At this point, do some tests without the original stimulus appearing, only with the command " Bark ".When you feel absolutely confident that your dog responds to the order, stop using the other stimulus completely.

When you get your dog to bark 80% of the times you give the order in two successive training sessions, go to the following criteria.Keep in mind that it is not necessary that you carry out all this criteria in one or two sessions.You can move forward little by little, reaching intermediate steps in different canine training sessions.

Get your dog to order

Your dog is already barking to order and now he must learn to shut up the order.Until now he would shut up when he heard the click of the clicker or when he received the piece of food.

Do about three repetitions of the order " Bark ", making click after one or two barks and giving your dog the piece of food, to refresh its memory.From the next repetition, make some notorious signal for your dog just before the click.

For example, you can put your hand with the open palm in front of your face, as if you wanted to stop it ( without touching it.) Or you can make a short " shhhht " immediately before click.

Some dogs shut up when you do any of those signals , because they take them by surprise.Others keep barking.It doesn't matter.The important thing is that the click come immediately after the signal you do.That yes, it should always be the Do not change the signal itself.

As you give the food just after the click , the signal you make before the click begins to acquire the properties of the positive reinforcement, although weaker, and at the same time acquires order properties to shut up.

Little by little you will notice that your dog is silent and waits for the piece of food when you make the signal.Repeat the procedure several sometimes have so that the chosen signal is effective 80% of the time in two consecutive sessions of canine training.

When you achieve that you can already enter the formal order.The signal you have been using will not be a good formal order because you started using it when your dog still did not understand the behavior you were teaching him.That is why it is advisable to change it for another signal that is more effective.

To enter the formal order, say " silence "or" enough "or another order that seems appropriate, just before using the signal with which you shut up your dog.Say the order in a calm voice without shouting.Then, wait for your dog to shut up and just then click and give him the little piece of food .

At this point you are no longer using the click to silence your dog, but a formal order.If your dog does not shut up after the order, do not click or give him food.And if he keeps barking, the session ends and ignor aa your dog until it stops.Repeat the procedure until your dog barks and stops to order at least 80% of the time.

Increase the time your dog stays silent

Practice the same as at the end of the previous criteria (using the orders for your dog to bark and shut up), but increases the duration gradually .

That is to say that in the first repetition you wait for your dog to remain silent for a second or less, before doing click and give him the piece of food.In the next repetition (of the same session) you wait until two seconds.And so you increase the time successively, until you get your dog to remain silent for at least one minute.

If your dog barks or makes any sound before the time corresponding to the Repeat, you start again from a second.For this, you end the session ignoring your dog for a few seconds and, when he is silent, wait about five more seconds.Then you give him the command again " barks " and after one or two barks the order " silence ".

Keep in mind that you don't need to reach a minute in a session of canine training or in a single day.It is very likely that you need to divide this criterion into several sessions and in several days to reach a minute or more of silence.

When you have achieved this criterion, you will already have very solid orders to bark and silence your dog.If your dog only causes discomfort in certain environments and you have trained the order in those environments, you will not need to do the following criteria.

However, if your dog barks in the street and in different places, it is better to introduce distractions according to the following criteria.

Enter distractions

Repeat the procedure of the previous criteria, but be sure to do it in different places and with different distractions .Start in places familiar to your dog and where there are few distractions.For example , in the backyard, in a park with little traffic of people and dogs, in a park in schedules of little vehicular movement, etc.

Little by little and in several sessions, it increases the distractions in those same places using for this, toys that move independently, helpers who make strange movements and noises, unusual sound recordings, friends who walk their dogs nearby, etc.

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