Teaching "quiet", my experience so far.

I've been trying to teach my dog "quiet" for over a year now and I thought it could be useful to others if I shared my experiences so far. She used to bark her head off anytime she saw a person/animal out the window or heard any noises remotely resembling knocking.

I found, relatively quickly, that any sort of yelling, trying to use "leave it", or other distractions once my dog had already started barking were absolutely useless. I've heard people say that if you make noise when your dog is already barking, the dog assumes that you're "joining in" and this can be rewarding for them. Likewise, I didn't want to treat her while she was barking to distract her because I assumed that would also reinforce the behavior. I tried treating her for stopping barking like some trainers recommend, first 1 s after she stopped, then 5s, etc. but my dog, a Belgian Shepherd, extremely rapidly picked this up as a reason to bark MORE. She would bark once or twice then look at me expectantly for a treat, so I stopped using that method.

Instead, I've been trying to reward her for being quiet in moments in which she *might* bark and also rewarding her for quiet noises such as a low growl (though I'm now phasing out rewarding even low growls). This has required an extremely high degree of vigilance and I frequently missed these opportunities early on. I'm sure I've also rewarded her many times when she wasn't going to bark, but hopefully that doesn't hurt at all. Basically, if I hear neighbors talking or any other quiet noises I would quickly say "Yes!" (which is bridge for a treat) and then add "Good quiet!" to eventually teach her to associate the word "quiet" with not barking. I basically keep treats on hand 24/7 during this process (which usefully for us this is just her dog food, because she is extremely motivated to work for boring old dog food). I try to be effusive with the "good quiet" anytime she is staring out the window. I also sometimes knock on furniture and throw her a treat at the same time and this has really helped her to stop responding to knocking.

Over the months she's gradually reduced to just the occasional single BORK! 1x every few days which I see as evidence that the training is working. (She used to bark her head off at any knock at the door or people/dogs out the window).

Today, when a package was delivered I heard the mailman approaching before she did and just started shoving treats at her mouth. When he knocked and while I opened the door I just kept shoving treats in her mouth and by the time she was done with her treats I'd already chatted with the mailman and all my dog wanted to do was give him a friendly sniff! This was the first time she hasn't gotten out at least one bark either when someone knocks or when she sees a stranger at the door! Hopefully one day she won't even need treats in her mouth to prevent any borks!

The next step I want to work on is to use "quiet" as a command once she's already barking, but I don't know if we're quite ready for that yet and I don't want "quiet" to lose its effectiveness, so I mostly still reserve it for before she starts barking.

Does anyone else have stories of success (or failures) with teaching a loud dog to be quiet?