I've had "pet dogs" all my life and I'm getting beyond some basic obedience work with one of my dogs right now. I'm teaching the "speak" command. This may seem like a no-brainer, but I have 3 quite dogs that have been conditioned to be quite. At this point, training to bark on command is an uphill battle. I just thought I'd take a second to share what finally worked for me in the off chance that it might actually help someone else.

I read Ed's Article on the subject (Training the Non-Biting Dog To Bark at the Door). The theory of the article is great, but my dogs are all hesitant to bark at anything other than a perceived threat. Getting them to consistently make a noise is difficult. Eventually, I resorted to ringing my doorbell repeatedly (sometimes 30 or more times) until the dog made a sound, but was never able to get him to "speak" on cue... he seemed to get annoyed that the doorbell kept ringing and was barking to show his irritation. Then... in the middle of all this, my cell phone rings. He starts this winy, high pitched, bark that sounded almost like a howling wolf... bingo. I made my phone ring several more times and it was like magic... all of a sudden, I've got SOMETHING that makes him speak up. Now I have something to use to guide him into speaking on command.

Hope this helps somebody out there and if not, maybe somebody will get a laugh out of it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I'm starting to train this so I can move on to "No bark." so I'll be trying it out. Mine will bark at the sound of the door being locked/unlocked but completely ignores the doorbell.

. . . but what's the ringtone you use? My dog seems to enjoy "Sweet Home Alabama" and the "Looney Tunes" theme. Guess I need something more irritating? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

This is just a hunch... but I think that the dog has seen me scramble for my ringing phone enough times that he knows something is going on when it rings. Either someone calls at 6 in the morning and I jump out of bed or he sees me go racing through the house to get to it when it rings in the other room... The only other possibility is he might be modeling after my bird that says "Hello" when my phone rings. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />