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Page Four of a twelve-page article:
A Detailed Examination of the Process of Bark Training a Dog

Setting the Plan In Motion

Remember, to stop a problem behavior, one of the essential elements is the elimination of the reinforcers that support it. The reinforcer that made Bear bark was the opportunity to interact with people, so I began by speaking with the people who sometimes responded to his barks by petting and socializing with him. I explained the situation and asked them, in the future, not to approach him when he was barking and they agreed, no problem.

When reinforcement for a barking response is slowly thinned over time, so the dog is gradually given less and less in the way of rewards for barking, the likely result is that the barking will continue on even after virtually all the reinforcers that used to drive the response have been eliminated. With that in mind, I made it a point to speak to absolutely everyone to make sure that all of the social reinforcers, that were supporting the barking were removed at once. The next part of the plan was the most fun. I began to reward Bear for being quiet. I started, so to speak, reinforcing quiet behavior.

We began a routine. Every time I went outside, Bear would push down the fence and scramble onto it to reach the spot where I stood. I would give him one single cookie (a small sized dog biscuit), then I'd give him a sixty-second rub down as I spoke to him in the sort of affectionate tones usually reserved for speaking to young children. Then I'd go back inside.

As a rule, when you're providing food to reinforce quiet behavior, or any behavior for that matter, you have to use tiny amounts, maybe as little as a single pellet of dry dog food. That's because dogs are prone to gain too much weight with resulting health problems, the same as people. Bear was an exception to the rule, however, because he was Whippet thin, but he wasn't a Whippet. He was a herding dog who desperately needed to gain weight. So, I went ahead and gave Bear an entire biscuit, albeit a small one, every time I went outside.

The routine was for me to go out, on average, once every half hour. I made it a point only to go out on those occasions when Bear had not barked for at least the preceding five minutes, because, if he received a cookie soon after barking, the food would serve as a reinforcer and the barking would increase. I gave Bear the next six days to learn the routine.

Once each day I took out the trash, which required that I exit the side door and walk past Bear on my way to the garbage cans in the alley. On those occasions I paused along the way to give him his usual rub down and talking to, but trash time was special. When it was trash time, Bear got not one cookie, but three cookies. He eagerly anticipated the daily trash removal ceremony. It was a big moment in his day. Oh, you betcha.

Up to that point I had facilitated the withdrawal of the reinforcer for barking and I had begun to dispense regular reinforcement for being quiet. Now it was time for the next phase. I began to punish Bear's barking behavior.

I had decided to use the form of punishment in which you punish your subject by taking away something he wants. In this case I would withhold the food that Bear had come to expect whenever I stepped outside.

On the morning of the seventh day Bear barked and I rushed outside and exclaimed "No" in an emphatic, angry tone. Then, went back inside without giving him the biscuit he anticipated. I doubt he was impressed much by my raised voice, but I'm sure he was upset by the way I reentered the house without giving him a cookie. He soon realized that the same thing happened every time. If he barked, I would exit the house, tell him "no," and reenter without feeding him, and if I came back out within the next few minutes it would only be to chastise another bark which, in turn, reset the clock and delayed the next cookie for a while longer. On the other hand, as he quickly discovered, if he was quiet, visits were more frequent and each visit brought refreshment and affectionate physical contact.

Bear was located outside my west window. I could look out my south window and see pedestrians walking down the sidewalk, coming from the east moving toward the west. More to the point, I could see them before Bear knew they were coming. So, when I saw people approaching I would hurry to Bear's side where I would speak to him affectionately and pet him with one hand while holding a clearly visible cookie in the other. If he barked as the people came into sight I would speak harshly, "No" and walk back inside, taking the food with me. If he remained quiet as the people passed by, I gave him the biscuit while continuing with the conversation and the rub down.

If Bear barked loud and long in a violation of egregious proportions, I would immediately carry out the trash, timing it so I appeared on the scene shouting "NO" while he was still barking. When I was done I reentered the house carrying all three biscuits so he could see them. I'm sure it was tough for him to see those cookies disappear back inside the house. He was aware it would be the next day before he'd have another chance for a triple treat, and he knew that if he hadn't barked he'd have been eating instead of dreaming about what might have been.

The frequency of Bear's barking dropped off quickly. There was no point in his barking anymore because those he was attempting to summon no longer responded by socializing with him. In the new order of things, people only came to socialize when he was quiet. His owners still came out to feed him twice a day, but they never reacted to his barking one way or the other. Therefore, he no longer had any reason to bark and he now had plenty of reason to be quiet. In eight days, Bear's outbursts went from hundreds of barks each day to a few barks each week, and he soon stopped barking altogether.

It didn't take long for us to become close friends. For the rest of the time I lived in that house, on average, for every half hour I was awake, I probably spent one or two minutes with Bear, and on occasion, I'd make a detour on the way to or from the bathroom to check on him and dispense a nocturnal cookie in the wee hours of the morning. He was a charming companion, sweet, affectionate and appreciative of the least little thing done for him. He calmed me and I soothed him, and we gave each other something to look forward to.

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