Hey

I'm just posting this thread so that I can see if you think I'm training him the right way.

Ollie used to bark for ages in the garden (up to 20 minutes) so we never let him out off lead or on his own. Over the past week, I've been training him to reduce his barking. We seem to be getting somewhere, however I think we've stalled a bit. He now barks for about 10-60 seconds at a time, but he does this several times whilst he's outside. I was hoping for him to only bark once he went outside (from excitement and just him letting other dogs know that it was his garden), but he seems to be barking a lot and I don't know if what I am doing is actually encouraging it.

My training technique is to reward about 10 seconds after his last bark. When he's barking, I go back inside the house because his barking is mostly attention seeking, so I'm ignoring the barking and rewarding the quiet. However, I'm wondering if he's associating a treat with being quiet AFTER he's been barking. This happened when I was training recall with him. He learnt that to get a treat, he had to run away so that I could call him back and then give him a treat. He seems to be outwitting me.

So should I now reduce the treats and only reward quiet after 30-60 seconds of quiet so he doesn't seem to associate the barking and reward? Or should I not reward the quiet with treats, just use myself and my voice and playtime as a reward? Any training tips?

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

As he's on a lead, I would take him back inside as soon as he starts barking. If he goes out and doesn't bark, reward him then.
There's no need for him to bark when he goes out, it's a bad habit.

he is off the lead at the moment, because he doesn't bark when he's on lead. So to teach him not to bark, I have to let him bark by letting him off lead. And I'm not going to chase him around the garden trying to catch him either because that'll be giving him attention.

I don't mind him barking a little bit, as he is a vocal dog, I'm not expecting miracles here, just that he reduces the barking to 10 seconds when he first goes outside.

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

Good Luck with this, sounds like you're doing well so far - I am looking for bark busting tips too :-) so if you have any good ones forward them on

thank you.

Just did some training with Ollie in the garden, and he did the whole barking thing when he went outside. He barked for about 2 minutes, but I decided not to reward every single quiet period, because otherwise it seemed like I was rewarding the barking. He had several breaks of about 10 seconds of quiet which I didn't reward, but when he came to the house, I rewarded him then as he had been quiet for a fairly long time.

I then played fetch with him so he learnt that being quiet and coming to the house to ask me to come out with him meant playtime. He was great, until he saw a cat run across the back of our garden. He then went on a whole barking frenzy again, but its to be expected because he hates cats, so that has nothing to do with my training for attention-seeking barking.

So some good and some bad. Hopefully now I'm rewarding longer periods of quiet and not rewarding every single quiet period, he should learn that I'm rewarding the quiet, not the barking and then quiet.

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

I did the keeping him on the lead and bringing him in every time he barked. Now he will bark once to check a neighbour's dog isn't out if he wants to go to the toilet and that is it. I keep him on the lead if he goes out first/last thing just in case, but it really worked.

we still take him out on lead if we haven't got time for training or if its early morning/late evening. but when we have time for training, then I let him out off lead because he won't bark on lead.

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

If he doesn't bark on lead, why not keep him on it? What about your trailing long line, does he bark when he's on that? If he did, you could just pick up the end and take him back inside.
Being vocal is no excuse. Kite is a breed that was created to move sheep by barking, but she knows that if she goes out and barks, she has to come in. I don't even have to get her, she brings herself in! Ollie barks because you have let him. I feel sorry for your neighbours.

how rude. I'm trying to sort this out for his sake. Why should I keep him on a lead in the garden just because he barks? I want him to run around in the garden, explore and have fun. All I have to do is reduce his barking.

Before I was slamed for expecting perfection with Ollie, and now that I've changed my attitude to not expect miracles and take him as he is, I'm being slamed again. God, maybe I should not post anymore.

__________________
I OWN A CHOCOLATE ROAN COCKER SPANIEL
RIP David xx Run free at the bridge. Love you always xx 19th February 2011
RIP Jack and Mickey xx Run free at the bridge. Love you forever xx 20th June 2011

Couple of thoughts:

-Does he bark indoors at any time? Do you handle the indoor barking the same way in which you do the outdoor barking? (Sorry if that seems to be a silly question, but the dog should pick up the 'limited bark' policy more quickly if you use the same method for all barking.)

-Have you tried putting a command name to this? You may have, but I haven't seen it mentioned.

I think it's unrealistic to expect that a dog will never bark. Like you, I went for limited barking--1or 2 barks only in our case.