My 5.5 month old female GSD, Danke, is starting to come into her own.
Since we've had her, the only time she has ever barked, was when she was being crate trained. Outside of that, the only other vocalizations from her have been quiet, excited whining when I come home from work, and the occassional "yipe", when she's had her neck scruff shaken (it takes a pretty hard-corps shake to even get that from her).
But in the past three days, she has barked twice. The first time, my next-door-neighbor's four year old was at the fence talking to MY four year old. I told the neighbor's son he could come over and play (he does so frequently, and Danke knows and likes him). When he started to climb over the fence, Danke went into her puppy play-bow, tail-a-waggin', and let out a little puppy play bark.
It was pretty clear it was a "let's play" bark, from her body language. Danke loves playing in the yard with my four year old, and my four year old's friends. They toss frisbees for her, and climb around, under and through the jungle gym, and just generally frolick like a bunch of puppies together. It's been especially nice while I've been rehabing from a bad ankle sprain.
Yesterday, she barked once, at the neighbors on the OTHER (right) side of our house. The neighbor has been very friendly too her, if he sees her sitting by the fence, he'll say hello, though he has never petted her. He has on occasion sprayed the hose through the fence to let her chase the water, which she enjoys. So, needless to say, she is comfortable with these neighbors as well.
While they were coming home yesterday, she saw them, and barked once. This time her body language was harder to read, she definitely wasn't doing a play bow, but she also didn't seem overtly aggressive- her tail was still held in a neutral, friendly posture, her ears were up in "inquisitive" puppy mode. Because her motive wasn't clear to me I immediately gave her a verbal correction for the bark, and recalled her to me (of course praising her for the recall, which she did perfectly).
I have never permitted a puppy to interact with non-pack members, through a fence or otherwise, the way I have with Danke. I've changed a lot of my approach to socialization with her, because she is being trained into SAR, unlike any of my past dogs. Normally I would train my dog to completely ignore people that weren't part of it's pack. That doesn't work with Danke, because a SAR dog needs to be extremly people friendly, and motivated to meet new people.
I do want Danke to learn to be vocal, because I'd love to train a bark alert on a find, but at the same time, I do NOT want a dog that barks at the neighbors in their own yard. Can I have both, or is this an all-or-nothing thing?
I'm thinking that because I want her to learn a bark alert, I was wrong to correct her for the bark. I almost suspect that if I let her bark ONCE, and then recall her to me, that it will in a sense be imprinting for her alert later, AND since it's only once, I won't have a dog going nuts all the time barking at neighbors.
Does this seem like the right approach?