HELP: How to teach the command, "Quiet!" or "Stop Barkling!"?

I would like to teach Al & Gwynn to cease barking on voice command or gesture, like, "Shhhhh!".

More precisely, the command means "Enough!", "I heard you, thanks, no more", to terminate over-enthusiastic alarm barks and greetings. It's a complicated message: "I appreciate your bark, but once I've heard it, I don't want it anymore". Asking a lot of that little brain but I think they can handle it. I want them to do doorbell alerts and noisy greetings, but I would like to be able to terminate this on command.

I'd like to teach a related but different command that would mean, "Be quiet, make no noise at all!" , "Hush!"
Examples of this: Al always barks once sharply when he catches the soccer ball, and I'd like to stop this (don't think I can), or when we meet horses on a trail, or when we're committing highway robbery. :-) "Don't even THINK of barking!"

Suggestions & references welcome.

Wow, interesting: if you want to communicate with an animal (canine or human), it's best to know what you're saying or expecting, and it's unexpectedly complicated. All packed into one syllable.

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Permalink Reply by Ju Lo on October 8, 2008 at 3:25pm

If you can teach a Corgi to stop barking, I think we would all love to hear about it.

The only way I can get Theo to stop barking is to call his attention to me with a "look" or "watch me" if you prefer. That distracts him from his barking. Unfortunately, that distraction lasts about 30 seconds and then it's back to barking.

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Permalink Reply by Parker on October 8, 2008 at 5:13pm

Grover can be SUCH a barker sometimes. So I'd like to know how to do this too! We haven't covered that in my class yet either. He will just BARK sometimes in the back yard if our neighbors are outside or something. Which I'm sure is pretty annoying to them.
Anyone got anything on this?

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Permalink Reply by Sarah C. on October 8, 2008 at 5:39pm

I actually never figured out how to teach didi to speak, but I did teach her quiet. It hushes her for a minute, after an attention command like "watch me". My friend who owns a groomer/kennel told me to get them really excited and have them bark to teach them speak and then while they're barking and waiting for you to give a command say, really quietly "quiet" (or hush or whatever).Then you give them a treat. She explained it to me that it's really stupid to yell at them or be excited when what you want is calmness and quiet. If you wave a hand to get them to wave a paw and lean down when you want them to lay down, doesn't it follow that you should be quiet when you want them to be quiet? I don't know that it's sound animal behaviorology (teehee) but it makes sense to me.
It's not fool proof, when Didi hears something that is disturbing to her she still gives me her little warning "wwwuh.. wuuhhf." but you know. It makes her shut up when she's excited and bouncing all around my feet. That's something.
Now peanut butter... that'll shut them up. >)