How to Teach a Dog to Speak

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I am going to introduce you a little later on to my video series and eBook series and teach you some pretty in-depth stuff about dog behavior, how to get rid of the things that you don’t want and how to teach your dog to do the things that you do want. And as an introduction, let me teach you a couple of little things here with a couple of short videos. This first video I want to show you is how to teach your dog how to kind of bark on command. It’s kind of a fun trick and it’s a fun way to interact with your dog. It can also be beneficial if your dog is an excessive barker. You can teach your dog when it’s appropriate to bark on command.

So, I’d like to teach the dog there is a certain word, you can bark on command. And that’s a good time to bark. The first thing you need to do when you teach your dog how to bark on command is to find something that he loves. In this case, Rocco here loves tennis balls. And so I’m going to use that to kind of frustrate him. If your dog loves treats, if he loves toys, if he loves tennis balls, if he loves rags, anything like that, that’s going to bring out his drive to get, to grab, to hold on to, that’s the kind of thing you want to use in order to teach your dog how to speak on command.

And so, the second thing we need to do after we’ve determined what is the big motivator for your dog is to frustrate the dog. And how do you do that? You frustrate your dog by holding him back. Now, I’ll bet you’ve walked on the street at some point or another and there’s a dog behind the fence and they’re barking like crazy. Are they all aggressive? Maybe some are, but probably they’re not. If you’re open up the gate, a good portion of them are just going to look at you.

The reason they’re barking so much is because they’re frustrated. Any obstacle can frustrate a dog. You also see the same thing happen sometimes when people walk their dog on the street, pulling the dog back. The dog continues barking over and over and over at every cat, bird, dog, and distraction that they see. And I’ll more into details on that later on in my video series on how to teach your dog to walk properly. In this case we’ll really use that frustration and we’re going to teach the dog how to bark on command.

It’s really simple what we’re going to do. You can use a leash like we’ve got here on Rocco. It’s kind of tied up to a tree. You can put the dog behind a chain link fence that you can still see, or something like that. Put an obstacle between you and the dog and you and the treat or motivation and the dog to kind of build that dog’s intensity. So, what I’m going to do is get him to the end. Now Rocco knows how to bark on command, so it’s not going to be too hard.

But what you’re going to want to do is you’re going to want to wave the toy back and forth, wave the treat back and forth and keep the dog really excited and over and over say the word that you want: eat, talk, whatever word you want to use. Say that word over and over while you’re stimulating the dog. The instant that he gives any sort of vocalization and he start to bark or whine or anything, immediately give him the toy.

Once the dog starts to get the idea what you can do, make sure he barks two or three, and insist that he barks more than just once before you give him his toy. So, it’s really simple. Find something the dog loves, frustrate him with a fence or leash or something, make him really want that thing and when he vocalizes that give him the toy. Do that and you can teach your dog how to bark on command.