Just kidding, but that's how I felt this evening.

Keiko is a somewhat vocal dog and her "voice" is true to the Australian Shepherd working description as written by ASCA - "...a working Australian Shepherd will often display...an authoritative bark".

As can be expected, I discourage her "authoritative barking" by ignoring her or giving her the quiet command. I noticed in a recent marker training session that she was no longer offering the bark. (yay!) But then I thought about it and didn't want to completely inhibit her bark, as it is very likely that I will choose a bark as her alert in search & rescue. So I started marking it today. The lightbulb went on this evening and she would "authoritatively bark" at me at random. Then she would look at me as if to say "I'm barking, where's my cookie?! See! See! I'm barking! This worked earlier!"

To teach the "speak" or not to teach? THAT is the question.

Sorry, this is my late night rambling...I will probably read this in the morning and feel silly, lol. While I did have a headache and her authoritative barking didn't go over well, I think it's a bit of an amusing dilemma...I want to preserve the bark for her alert later but I also don't want her just whooping and hollering all the time. (which she did prior to teaching her quiet) I've resolved to spend time teaching her speak and then spend time teaching her quiet. Then she will learn that there is a time to be "authoritative" (only when I ask for it!!) and a time to be quiet.

Keep her future career in mind.

I would teach the speak and conversely the quiet / enough command.

 Quote: jasmine dillon

I noticed in a recent marker training session that she was no longer offering the bark. (yay!) But then I thought about it and didn't want to completely inhibit her bark, as it is very likely that I will choose a bark as her alert in search & rescue.

What discipline of search and rescue will you be working this dog in? A bark alert is desirable for a disaster SAR dog, however, most people prefer a "refind" for a wilderness SAR dog.

When I train a dog for SAR, the alert behavior is sacred to the task. I do not reward a dog for the alert behavior in any other situation/context. For example, asking a dog to bark for his food when his SAR alert is a bark is a huge no-no in my book.

Are you working with a SAR group?

Sorry, I think I've been a bit misunderstood. I was being silly in my original post...it was meant to be read comically. I understand that's difficult since we're reading as opposed to actually talking with each other and I also haven't posted much so my tendency to use sarcasm hasn't been exercised yet. My original post was playing on the fact that Keiko has proven true to her breed standard regarding the sound of her bark, not seriously asking whether or not to train the bark.

Yes, I am working with a team. I have not actually begun training the puppy in any discipline as I am fairly new to the team. I also haven't chosen a discipline yet - I've decided that I will pursue whatever discipline she seems she can excel in. And I have decided that I will teach the speak/quiet, as I mentioned in the original post.

 Quote: Konnie Hein

When I train a dog for SAR, the alert behavior is sacred to the task. I do not reward a dog for the alert behavior in any other situation/context. For example, asking a dog to bark for his food when his SAR alert is a bark is a huge no-no in my book.

Konnie, what do you do with a puppy regarding the bark before you've started any actual training on them for SAR? I understand the reasoning behind this for a dog that is training in SAR but not for a puppy that has not yet been started.

So what part of the south are you in. Cute pup! That is the best approach to work with what SHE offers. Aussie? Betcha she will be an air scent dog.

Konnie knows about the bark alert with disaster work - I am on one of those wilderness teams that uses recall refind.

My dogs' main bark command was "shut up" and they wear bark collars in the truck, they bark on water to alert to HR. It was no trouble to get that bark. It was a natural behavior easy to build on it using frustration since they could not get to source.

 Quote: Nancy Jocoy

So what part of the south are you in. Cute pup! That is the best approach to work with what SHE offers. Aussie? Betcha she will be an air scent dog.

Thanks Nancy! Yep, she's an Aussie. I also feel like there is a high probability that she will be an air scent dog but we'll see! I'm definitely open to all of the disciplines.

 Quote: jasmine dillon

Konnie, what do you do with a puppy regarding the bark before you've started any actual training on them for SAR? I understand the reasoning behind this for a dog that is training in SAR but not for a puppy that has not yet been started.

With a pup who readily barks, I would do nothing regarding the bark. I would completely ignore it for now and then only reward it in training situations where the bark alert is associated with the find.

With a dog who is quick to bark, rewarding the bark in any other situation could set up a dangerous behavior pattern. The "danger" is that there's a good potential for the dog to bark for reasons other than the alert/find because he/she has previously been rewarded for doing so. The dog does not magically switch gears and forget all puppy training once official SAR training has started, so I'm not sure where the reasoning you've stated above would come from.

Specific situations I've seen are as follows:
Dogs are initially rewarded by their handlers with food or toys for barking at them. Then, during SAR training, the dog barks at the handler when confused or frustrated because the dog has been rewarded for this behavior in the past.

For some dogs, there's no issue. However, I've found it is more likely to be an issue with dogs who are "barkers."

 Quote: konnie hein

With a pup who readily barks, I would do nothing regarding the bark. I would completely ignore it for now and then only reward it in training situations where the bark alert is associated with the find.

The problem here is that she was no longer readily barking. My only goal in marking for the bark was to teach her that offering the bark was not a bad thing and she was not going to be corrected for doing it. After a few short sessions in which I did reward for the bark yesterday, she seems to understand that so now I can move to simply ignoring the barks as opposed to correcting them, which I was doing before. Does that make sense?

 Quote: konnie hein

With a dog who is quick to bark, rewarding the bark in any other situation could set up a dangerous behavior pattern. The "danger" is that there's a good potential for the dog to bark for reasons other than the alert/find because he/she has previously been rewarded for doing so.

This makes more sense to me. While I have not seen a dog with a bark alert bark at anything else while working, I have seen a dog who really struggled to have the bark frustrated out of him because it had been inhibited as he was growing. This is what I was addressing in my puppy.

 Quote: konnie hein

Specific situations I've seen are as follows:
Dogs are initially rewarded by their handlers with food or toys for barking at them. Then, during SAR training, the dog barks at the handler when confused or frustrated because the dog has been rewarded for this behavior in the past.

Are these dogs that have been told to speak and then they bark? Or are they barking because they want the handler to throw the toy, so the handler throws the toy for them?

 Quote: Jasmine Dillon

The problem here is that she was no longer readily barking. My only goal in marking for the bark was to teach her that offering the bark was not a bad thing and she was not going to be corrected for doing it. After a few short sessions in which I did reward for the bark yesterday, she seems to understand that so now I can move to simply ignoring the barks as opposed to correcting them, which I was doing before. Does that make sense?

I understand what you're saying, but I personally would just leave it alone entirely or do as I've described below until you start SAR training (if you're going to use a bark alert).

 Quote:

This makes more sense to me. While I have not seen a dog with a bark alert bark at anything else while working, I have seen a dog who really struggled to have the bark frustrated out of him because it had been inhibited as he was growing. This is what I was addressing in my puppy.

I personally would address it only by encouraging/rewarding the bark(through frustration of the dog in drive) in association with target odor.

 Quote:

Are these dogs that have been told to speak and then they bark? Or are they barking because they want the handler to throw the toy, so the handler throws the toy for them?

I've seen it both ways and I've seen both ways create the previously mentioned problem.

If you have a pup who is genetically a barker, you can likely easily un-do any previously instilled inhibition by repetition of drills where a helper elicits a bark from your dog through frustration in drive.

Certainly there are many ways to train an effective SAR dog, and the above is only my opinion based on my experience. I hope the info is helpful though!