pml.....nice one...

Selkie has two vocal commands... "Speak" Which is a sharp clear bark and "whasamatter?" Which is a 'whooowoo'... I taught her by teasing her with a treat for the bark command and the whoowoo I just gave her the command when she was already making the noise and she started to catch on... Same with 'smile' it was something she started to do when I was tring to teach her 'gently' she couldn't understand what I meant, so copied my facial expression and gave me a big old smile ... I have a video of her somewhere....

Kismet was immune to teasing but funnily enough while playing a game of creepy 'getcha ears' she barked at me, so I said Good girl 'speak'! and we took it from there, but I still sometimes need to use the scary hands to get kismet to bark...

Pharaoh has never barked on command or otherwise. I tried to teach him and he 'can' bark, he has surprised himself before and given a from his toes Woof! But it scares him and he wont do it on purpose He is a special angel.

Curiously his sister Bizkit also wont bark, but was much more focused on wanting to get the treat, so she has learned to bark silently... She also purrrs.. She is a very strange dog.

you lot are nutters...

ah bless, thank god someone else that uses the creepy getcha to make a dog bark....

HAHAHAHA that vids really good....lovely teeffys

Awwwwwwwww that is too cute!

I taught Fudge in much thr same way you taught your collie, it took about 10 minutes.

I waited for her to bark for something she wanted then treated and used a hand signal. I then introduced the "speak" command. I have yet to master the "quiet command" and I have been going a long while.....

Only trouble I have found is that she comes and sits and does her special "speak" bark whenever she wants anything...

"speak" was one of the first commands that Selkie learned and is her fall back when doing anything, keen, or confused... I wanted to wrangle her for advert/tv work and we went for a couple of auditions. Unfortunately we lost both jobs because she was too 'mouthy'.. I think this vid shows you what I mean..

I would just capture the bark too. Ludo can speak on command, but he's a noisy sheltie. lol.

I taught him to 'wipe his feet' using a similar method. He was dig at the sofa or bed really agitatedly to get attention when he was being ignored, so I started to click to capture the behaviour and then added the command and redirected it to a towel, he doesn't scratch the sofa anymore. Guess I took the fun out of it.

So my point being I don't think it would make him bark more, just by click/rewarding the negative barking.

I'm in the process of teaching Cox to 'speak' for WT purposes, but have put it on the back burner now, because he has decided that he needs to speak to me to get my attention when I am ignoring him - he doesn't need it until the higher stakes anyway.

I started by tying him up to a post, and waving his ball in front of him, mimicking prey movements, along the ground and in the air, at first he just lunged at it, but it wasn't long before a bark came. As soon as I got it I rewarded him, and then asked for better, louder barks before rewarding, and more in a row. Because he is so excited by the ball, he sometimes forgets to bark and whines and clacks his teeth together, so I then tried to bring the focus back by teasing with food (he has a lower food drive then ball drive) and I get more consistent barks. He will now bark without a ball, food in sight.

But I did speak to my WT trainer about alternative methods, as it was at first difficult to get him to bark, since I just got whining and lots of bouncing about.

She said that I should capture natural barking by saying the command when he is barking naturally. I can well understand why you don't want to praise unwanted barking, but perhaps if this is the only way to get it with Yogi, once you have captured the barking, then you can work on quiet and eliminate the unwanted barking?

One thing to think about is how you want the dog to 'speak' - the speak I have created is a speak directed at me with him looking at me when doing it, which would not be useful if I wanted him to bark at someone else, but if Yogi's 'speak' is initially directed at sheep or other dogs, then he might not get into the habit of facing you when barking.

Gabe was taught on a silent cue (useful for film work)

I tied him up and wound him up with a toy in the air - my hand dropping down in the cue to stop.

Once he barked I threw the toy to him to play with - he learnt in about 10 mins

He is not at all voacl - will never bark at people coming past the gate, into the house unless he is very worried. He is very talkative though....which I guess is the GSD in him