How did you train your dog not to bark at visitors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In addition to teaching "quiet" (good tips above), work on training him to sit and stay in a place. For us, we have worked on mat training to train our dog to go onto a mat (or towel) on command and stay. We then worked up to having that place be by the fireplace which is well away from the door. It's not perfect yet (he's young), but when the doorbell rings, he barks and then quiets on command and now starts to go automatically to his place until released to come say hello. Super long training process, but it can be done. Until then, crate training or keeping behind a gate is important.

This. But it takes an extraordinary amount of time with dogs like this. I have one so I can attest to it. People who have easy dogs just don’t understand the work involved. Big dogs like this react big. Be consistent and train when visitors are NOT coming over, that way they know what they are doing when they do. And stick with the basic commands: sit, come, heal, place, down, break. Any more than that with dogs like this is confusing.

[Anonymous]

I have also taught my dog the ‘leave it’ command. We do use an e-collar, so she has learned that command with a stim. We use it for when she has a bird in her mouth (she’s a hound dog who lives in the city so ‘lucky’ for us she hunts city birds and squirrels), when she’s barking at the letter carrier, when she’s looking to lunge at a child on a scooter (has an issue with things with wheels), etc. ‘Leave it’ is a nice command for those purposes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You want your dog to bark at visitors, then calm down when they see they're not strangers to you. It's a good thing.

+1 They're protecting their family.

Make sure you don't scold or punish the dog for barking. Say, good dog, it's okay, it's okay, in a friendly voice. Otherwise they continue to relate the doorbell and guests to something bad -- being scolded -- and they get more stressed at the doorbell/guests and continue barking. This goes for dogs that bark at other dogs when on a walk, too. Be supportive, not harsh.

[Anonymous]

I taught,my cat to not meow for anything except needing to go outside to use the bathroom. If I can toilet train and meow train a cat certainly you can teach a dog not to bark. You just find alternative behaviors that serve the same function as the barking or are incompatible with barking.

You really need to figure out what situation or alternatives work for you though and what behaviors the animal already exhibits that you can use as an alternative. That way you don’t need to teach additional behaviors, instead you just differentially reinforce one behavior over another. For example you could teach him to go lay on a mat in the other room and chew a bone or toy. He can’t bark if he’s chewing. However if he has issues with chewing or you don’t want him having chew bones then this wouldn’t be a good option and you should keep thinking until you find something that works.

For example, before I started teaching my cat not to meow for food she constantly meowed when she wanted me to open the refrigerator because it was learned that’s where the food was kept. Another behavior she exhibited was winding herself between my feet. So I opened the refrigerator to retrieve the food when she was weaving but not meowing. Then after I opened the food can she wanted to meow again so I just waited for her to be quiet before presenting the food. I started by waiting 2 seconds and worked up to a minute. In the end she now just follows me to the kitchen if she’s hungry and sits and stares at me. If she really wants food and I’m sitting she comes and rubs my legs.

So use whatever the animal is already doing to your advantage to decrease training time. Alternatively a strategy that would work if you have 2 people to do training you can have one ring the bell or knock. You then wait for him to stop barking to open the door and get a treat. You can start by having the person knock or ring bell then give treat immediately. This way you pair the knock or bell with the treat. After that knock or ring you stand at the door with the door open, wait for barking to stop and then give treats. Then move to ring and door partly closed but treat giver still visible, door closed, etc until you are happy with the outcome. At some point you can give intermittent treats and move the treat giver to being yourself and not the person outside. The point is that the bell or knock, new people, and no barking become paired with a treat all at once. This way you don’t have to train each behavior separately.

Always plan out what you want the final outcome to look like before starting to train so you’ll know if it’s feasible and will work for your household. There’s no perfect answer other than what works and will be used consistently. You can teach an animal to do or not do most anything if you just have enough time and patience for it. Animal training is a lot of work though and you must be consistent or don’t even bother starting. I’ve been thinking about teaching my cat to ring a doorbell to let me know she wants inside but have yet to figure out a plan for how it’s feasible with only one trainer. Until I do I won’t invest a 3 months or more of time and energy into it.

Don’t try to teach lots of new behaviors all at once, pick a few that are most important and focus on those first. Stick to positive reinforcement strategies as long as they work but honestly sometimes they might not and you’ll need to use punitive strategies. For my cat training I used a spray bottle of water because she kept climbing the screen door and I had no way to teach her to stop without ripping the screen. 2 days of spraying and then just seeing the spray bottle was effective.

Please save punishment procedures for behavior that needs to be stopped immediately and for which you have no other alternative. Don’t forget to teach other behavior that allows the behavior to occur in an appropriate setting if possible or teach alternatives. For my cat I learned she just wanted to climb on everything so I taught her to climb down trees since eventually she’d be an indoor outdoor cat and would need to know this for self defense purposes. Cats won’t always just do this. I also increased her active play during that time of day because she just wanted to be outside playing all the time but was too little to leave out overnight. Don’t just punish a behavior unless it’s something harmful like biting. Even then you can teach different levels of biting and when biting is or isn’t appropriate. Most behaviors you find annoying are natural animal instincts that you’ll never get rid of completely and instead need to be stopped and then harness that energy elsewhere in an appropriate manner.

My cat used to want to bite me hard during play so I just used a blanket between us only on the bed so she knew it was ok to play bite. I allowed varying levels of decreasing pressure to be used during play. Now if she wants to play bite she knows not to bite hard but doesn’t really do it anymore, she’d rather just go outside and hunt mice. You will never change the animal behavior completely, work with what you’re given and make the best of it. I currently have one cat that was a stray that prefers a pillow on my bed to play outside but the one I trained as a kitten just could never have been solely an indoor animal. It was never in it’s nature. I just taught it survival skills like being afraid of cars, climbing large trees, and honed in on natural hunting skills through graduated play. It now stays outside about 23 hours in the summer and inside for about 20 hours in the winter. In the winter I have to still engage in extra play because they aren’t getting the need met outside. Having another cat really helps with this now since the mostly indoor cat loves play. That one also got itself stuck in a tree and now has lost outside overnight privileges. They’re both happy and healthy cats. The trained one is easier to deal with though, but we’re slowly working with the other one. It’s much harder to train an older animal than a puppy or kitten. Really focus on training for that first year and you’ll probably never have to address it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dog has two alternative behaviors they're trained to do. One is "go to your mat" (I point and he goes and lays or sits on his mat) the other is "come and sit"(I snap my fingers between my feet and he is trained to come sit between my feet).

Both of those with the intent to break his attention from barking. I would allow a couple barks them immediately go into an alternate training routine that will get his focus back on you.

This level of agitation is almost like extreme nervousness though. Any guests or types of guests he is more ok with? Can he meet guests outside at the park, then that same guest comes over, gives a treat if he's quiet, leaves? You might need to work with a trainer on this, this is more than just barking at the door. Could also try l'theanine or something else to calm. Barking until the guest leaves - a shock caller might stop the bark but the underlying reason won't be fixed and could cause other problems.

Yes, to all of this. Those of you who let your dogs bark without correction aren't doing your dog any favors.