Since I last posted here, I have already taught my dog to open doors (that are not fully shut) – before, he used to sit in front of a slightly ajar door and wait for someone to open it for him; not pee or poo at home; ‘hang on’ (which is a game we play when he hangs on to a peice of rope, and I lift him up in the air); ‘NO’ – oddly enough, this one took a while, but now, everytime I say ‘no’, he will stop in his tracks (and maybe even back off from whatever he’s doing); aaand drumroll SPEAK!
What’s weird is that when I was about half-way through with teaching him how to speak, when I decided to look up (on the internet) how other dog owners have accomplished this. I was surprised to find a professional commenting that ‘speak’ is one of the most difficult commands to teach.
I must say, the fact that I seem to have the most silent dog on the planet might have added to the difficulty (we literally didn’t hear a single bark from him until we had had him for almost 4 weeks), but overall, it wasn’t too much of a challenge. The important thing is to find out what makes your dog bark.
For my dog, it was rough games. I always noticed that when he was playing ‘rough’ with other dogs (biting at each other’s paws and tails, knocking each other down to the ground, etc) he would sometimes bark. So that is exactly how I decided to get him to do it. I would constantly repeat the word ‘SPEAK’, while playfully knocking him about and using my hands as a mouth snapping at his legs. Eventually, he would let out a bark (and he barks LOUD – probabely good that he doesn’t do it often. I suspect he’s even a little afraid of his own voice.) This is obviously followed by cutesy shouts of ‘GOOD BOY! GOOD BOOOY!’, and some treats.
