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

When He's Paid His Debt, You Just Forget

When bark training your dog, you need to respond to every bark by immediately dispensing an aversive. Soon after punishing, however, you should resume friendly relations with the dog. You don't want to be continuously sour with him while you're waiting for him to master the art of not barking. On the contrary, you want to see to it that being with you is a fun, highly rewarding experience for him right up until the time he transgresses. Immediately after the transgression, you should become markedly abrasive for just a second until he has paid his debt to society, then you instantly go back to being his charming companion. If you are extremely good to him when he's good, he'll be more profoundly influenced by your being momentarily bad to him when he's bad. Your dog needs to think of you as being too terrible to cross and too wonderful to want to.

While it's okay to go back to what you were doing with the dog before he barked and paid the price, you need to make certain that the dog's situation does not improve as a result of his misbehavior. If you are petting your dog when he barks inappropriately you can smack him in a punishing fashion and go right back to petting. On the other hand, if you wanted to, you could make the punishment more effective by smacking him and then getting up and immediately walking away. You might even want to top that off by refusing to interact with him for a minute or so afterward, but after that you should forgive and forget until the next time he puts his paw in the fire.

Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of my student who responded to her dog's barking by giving him a tiny taste of punishment, followed immediately by a giant dose of affection. The result was that the dog soon learned he could improve his situation by barking and, thereafter, bark he did. He barked and barked and barked.

Punish or Reinforce Early in the Response Sequence

What we think of as a single response is often not truly an isolated event; rather, it is one link in a chain of responses that occur in sequential order. For example, you may find that your children's response of punching one another follows a certain pattern and that those same events evolve in the same order every time. They begin by playing a game together. During the game the one that is winning teases the one that is losing. Then, the loser begins to call the winner names. Next, the winner responds with names of his own, followed by shouting which gives way to punching. When you get a series of responses that consistently follow one another in sequential order like that, it is called a response sequence.

You may find that your dog's barking is part of a response sequence. Let's say the dog hears the footsteps of a pedestrian walking the sidewalk on the other side of the fence. The sequence starts with the dog snapping to attention in a sudden display of alertness. Next, he gives a low, almost inaudible growl, following by a charge to the fence and a gander at the despicable interloper strolling the walkway beyond. Next, he races down the fence line and back again, followed by a steady stream of barking that stops only when the walker passes out of sight.

It is much easier to stop an unwanted behavior if you interrupt it early in the response sequence. So when your children play that game, and the one winning first begins to tease the one losing, that is the time to put your foot down. The further along they get in the response sequence, the harder it will be to put a stop to it. It's the same thing with your dog. When he first hears the pedestrian and snaps to attention, that is the point at which you want to intervene. Your dog's barking may not be part of a sequence, he may just hear a sound and bark with no further ado, but it's worth watching for.

No-Barking Bark Training In Review:

• Every time your dog barks inappropriately, go to him and dispense punishment. Every time.

• Make sure the aversive you use is actually punishing.

• Go to where he is. Do not call him to you.

• Go to him immediately after he barks.

• Go every time he barks, for as long as it takes, until he masters the art of not barking.

• Dispense the aversive/punisher in the aggressive manner of a dominant dog.

• Your punishment should be so consistent that the dog comes to perceive it as an automatic and inevitable consequence of barking.

• Remove all the reinforcers that support the barking.

• When the dog is quiet, reward him with your presence and your affectionate interactions.

Once your dog recognizes you as the dominant member of the relationship, he will willingly accept your right to say what is and is not acceptable. He will not hold it against you because you punish him for something he knows he should not have done. And as long as he is able to predict and avoid that for which he will be punished, he will not be traumatized by the experience.

You must clearly define right and wrong for your dog. You do that by frequently reinforcing right behavior, and always punishing wrong behavior. If you do that faithfully, you will find that it is seldom necessary to punish your dog because, after a while, he will seldom misbehave. Remember, your dog is definitely smart enough to learn. The real question is: Are you smart enough to teach him in a way he can understand?

Up to this point we've talked almost exclusively about training your dog not to bark. Now we get to the discussion of watchdogs who are taught to bark at certain things, and not to bark at others.

End of a twleve-part article: A Detailed Examination of the Process of Bark Training a Dog

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This page on bark training is part of Section One:
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