Does your puppy bark at different sounds?
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Use this technique:
With your puppy in the room, start knocking on the wall. Knock – and give him a treat, knock – treat, knock – treat. Knock louder – treat – knock louder – treat.
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The task here is to build our puppy’s response: as soon as he hears a knock, he has to look at you: “Give me something yummy”. Proper timing is very important: don’t wait for a reaction, because this way you might provoke the puppy to vocalize and bark. You should give him a treat before he starts vocalizing: this way, you’ll be reinforcing correct behavior.
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So, our job is to explain our puppy what exactly he has to do when he hears the knocking.
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As soon as the puppy is good at doing that, and looks at you every time you knock, you can ask your friends for assistance: they can walk by the door outside the room/apartment, while you are sitting inside ready to act, and whenever you hear a sound from outside, you should tell your pup “Good job” and give him a nice treat. You can repeat this a few times in a row.
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Ask you assistant to knock at the external side of the wall, to rattle the door handle, and as soon as you hear the sound, you need to quickly reinforce you puppy’s silence before he starts vocalizing.
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This way we are changing our dog’s emotional response when it comes to external stimuli.
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This method can be used with any type of noises (intercom, doorbell, loud noises outside, other dogs’ barking, etc).
Record these sounds on your phone and use them in the training process.
