Mine is a barker too, and we are having some problems with it. He knows sit, down, off, stay, leave it, (last two can be iffy, but he does know them)shake, turn, high five, low five and speak. We're working on quiet/no bark.
The one thing I do notice is that he is also a talker-completely different tone than barking. I try and positively reinforce the talking. He usually is barking to tell us something, so I'm okay with him talking to let us know, just not the excessive barking.
When he's barking and I can discern why, I'll ask him to do a command to get his attention, like sit. Once I have his attention, I will ask him again "Gotta go potty? Are you thirsty?" and he'll respond if I guessed right.
If he's barking because he wants to play, I tell him Quiet! and then I ask where a toy is and tell him to go get it. If he brought the toy to me already and is still barking, I make him do a command and sit quietly, then I throw the toy.
Jaeger gets dog food at 530am and about 5 pm, which is too long between, for his liking. I do usually give him "salad" around noon (dog friendly veggies and fruit only.) When he gets impatient for dinner or lunch, he'll bark. We did nip this one in the bud by purchasing a timer. If he barks for a meal, I set the timer for whenever dinner is-sometimes over an hour away and tell him "timer off, dinner" and he's quiet until the timer goes off.
I think his problem with barking is that he is SO aware of everything and wants to tell us. I'm fairly blind, so I miss a lot, and my partner is an Aspie, so he misses a lot too. I think if we caught everything, he'd bark less. To me, that means more vigilance on our part, and more distracting him on our part too. |