Can a dog be trained to not bark, or to stop barking?

November 19, 2024 8:08 PM

So I was reading a book about Marines in Vietnam, and how on some missions dogs were sent out with the Marines to warn of other people, even approximately how many other people. Silence was imperative. Well, these were German Shepards, a pretty basic breed, smart as hell yes but common. Maybe my question is not if dogs can be trained for silence but how.
posted by dancestoblue to Pets & Animals (13 answers total)

It’s all about context. Dogs are smart about circumstance and surroundings. Working dogs tend to bark much less to begin with, and then you give them a job where their people also stay silent; it wouldn’t be the most difficult part of training to impress upon them their need to be quiet in that situation. I’m sure those dogs barked plenty when they were off duty and hanging out with other dogs, or doing a job that needed their voice. If you watch videos of specialized service dogs helping their people, you’ll notice that usually they only bark as a last resort for an alert, or when they are off duty and playing. Dogs have tons of other ways to communicate through body language and scent.
posted by Mizu at 8:39 PM on November 19, 2024 [4 favorites]

How are dogs trained for silence? By training them to bark on command. Once they understand that, then they will wait for the command to bark.
posted by dum spiro spero at 9:05 PM on November 19, 2024 [19 favorites]

It's apparently possible, because I did it accidentally. He's sixteen now, and on the very rare occasion - maybe once every six months? - he has to resort to one sharp bark to get someone's attention to be take out, he acts ridiculously insulted that someone made him do it. (His preferred options are "patting" his feet on the bed, ridiculously heavy fake panting, or a barely audible whine.)
posted by stormyteal at 9:27 PM on November 19, 2024 [12 favorites]

If an animal can’t be trained to be silent, there are other more drastic measures, like the silent Chindit mules of WW II (CW: yes, it’s vocal chord surgery on animals.)
posted by zamboni at 4:17 AM on November 20, 2024

One can train chihuahuas (not exactly known for their intelligence,) not to bark, mostly by rewarding not barking via positive reinforcement.
posted by Mitheral at 5:11 AM on November 20, 2024 [3 favorites]

Oh, 100%. I've raised three dogs, and none of them would bark more than, maybe, two or three times a year. I never scolded them for barking (I think that's cruel, as are the collars and all other intimidation-based methods), I just taught them a form of communication I consider more polite.

When a baby cries or a young puppy barks, obviously tend to their needs immediately. But as children get older, most parents probably remind them to "ask nicely". That's what I did with the puppies, once they were 4-5 months old. They'd bark during meal prep, I'd freeze and wait for a few seconds of polite calm. When puppies barked for me to open a door, I'd just look at them until they thought to try something else. Sitting, pawing, staring at the door - all great. When they were being impatient little piranhas, squirming (and yipping) to get to their playmates in puppy preschool, I'd only let them go once they stilled for a moment (meaning a literal second; people expect too much when trying this and then everyone gets frustrated).

I think I had easy dogs to work with (toy breeds and herding dogs are more difficult), but they did all bark as puppies, and then became very patient and quiet adults.

Working dogs like the ones in your example are taught how to alert rather than not to bark. They scratch at bags to alert to contraband and paw the ground to indicate buried humans. Some freeze in place, nose pointing at the spot of interest. Others touch their handlers, "point" with their paws, or grab an indicator dangling from their collar, a "biting roll". The dogs in your example were probably taught to touch their humans. Varied and agreed-upon communication is so much more effective (less clumsy) than barking for everything, and dogs love clarity.

When dogs have a chance to communicate without barking, they'll usually be grateful for it. Dogs are mostly quiet amongst themselves, and they communicate with tiny movements or sounds. I think the barking probably evolved out of the need to get attention from more obtuse humans.

Sidenote: Chihuahuas actually are known for their intelligence. Their intelligence causes problems because they're rarely trained properly or taken seriously. Many smart dogs are very difficult to live with (German Shepherds are another example of this, when they don't get to work).
posted by toucan at 6:24 AM on November 20, 2024 [22 favorites]

A scared animal that knows that barking will bring danger on it, will not bark or make any other sound. You can see this in monkeys that have multiple warning calls - one for snakes in the trees, one for predators on the ground, and one for birds of prey. During a squabble between monkey troups they will sometimes give a predators on the ground call, even when there is no predator, as that breaks up the fight instantly. But when a monkey is alone and being threatened by predators it won't vocalize. It saves its breath to run and hides.

Barking is a vocalization that warns the rest of the pack that something is out there, and we have for a couple of million years bred dogs to be very barky, because that is highly useful to a small farmer or pastoralist. The more yapping, the less likely the weasel will try to get into the henhouse, or the coyotes will try to get into the sheepfold. The reason dogs bark when no one is listening is because they are bored or angry or scared, and trying to get someone or something to pay attention.

If a dog realises that the people it is with are terrified and not making any sound it will not bark. Even toddlers will usually pick up on the silence of frightened adults and go deathly quiet. Ever see someone breathing with their mouth wide open so that they can get in enough air to pant without making any sound? The staring eyes and the intent listening? A really smart dog who is close to their handlers can pick up the idea of silence really quickly - a dog that hasn't figured out when to be silent just isn't going to be taken out on a mission. I dare say quite a few of them got left at base because their handlers just didn't trust them enough.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:09 AM on November 20, 2024 [3 favorites]

With patience and care you can train dogs to do (or not do) just about anything. Positive Reinforcement works wonders.

I am very much not a professional trainer, but I would guess that for teaching them to not bark you would put them environments with things that they normally would bark at and reward them when they don’t bark. That would probably be led to by rewarding them for barking less or more quietly until eventually they understood that not barking at all will get them a treat.

Training dogs takes a lot of patience, discipline, and consistency that I do not possess. However, I have seen it in action and it works quite well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:50 AM on November 20, 2024 [2 favorites]

To this, I would add that not all dogs (and even, not all dogs even of the breeds discussed here) can be trained this way.

Working dogs, especially those with particularly important jobs, are typically chosen as the highest performers from a large group of dogs trained to do these jobs.

So it's not like all GSDs can be trained not to bark in those situations (or whatever), but rather, they train a bunch of GSDs to not bark (and whatever other stuff), and they choose the ones that are the best at it.
posted by entropone at 7:52 AM on November 20, 2024 [9 favorites]

I have a Recreational Barker. He barks for fun. I have not (to date) found a way to keep him quiet. He barks at people in the next block. He barks at dogs down the street.

I think some dogs just want to bark.

On the issue of not barking when owners are frightened:
We were camping once. Raccoons decided to have a loud party/fight one night at one of the bird feeding station not far from where our tent was.
It was LOUD, and at first we had no idea what was going on.

We had two dogs with us (not big barkers). We all sat up and listened. I really expected the dogs to bark at the unexpected noises, but no. They sat and listened in some apprehension just like we did.
posted by Archer25 at 7:52 AM on November 20, 2024 [3 favorites]

It's going to depend primarily on the dog- the breed, the individual, the lifestyle, the training. Barking is a self-rewarding activity for dog; they need no encouragement or reward to do so because the activity itself is the reward. Some breeds are more genetically prone to vocalization. The temperament of the mother has a significant impact on the behavior of the puppies- barky bitches produce barky pups the same way that clean bitches produce clean pups and shy bitches produce shy pups and so on. It is much easier to train a dog that is predisposed to perform the behavior you want. A dog that is reactive and nervous is going to be more likely to bark because the barking is a behavior that is wired into the reactivity. Like all behavior it's a spectrum- training can shift the dog to one side or the other by degrees, but the starting point matters.
posted by shesaysgo at 8:49 AM on November 20, 2024 [4 favorites]

So, the part you are missing: when they get these dogs as puppies and young adults to be trained, they aren't going to continue to train any dogs who are super bark-y. The idea here, then, isn't that these dogs are being trained not to bark. It's that they are getting puppies and training them and selecting the ones who do the best. Just like with the soldiers, the dogs are in many training situations, with their handlers, before they are ever in combat situations.

Have you heard of situations where dogs are trained to be helper dogs of some kind but then don't have the right personality or demeanor and end up with a nice family as a regular pet?

If the question is, "I have a bark-y dog; how can I train it not to bark?" then that's a very different situation than "We bred dogs who were well-suited to this work and then reinforced that with training them from young pups."
posted by bluedaisy at 12:12 PM on November 20, 2024 [2 favorites]

I sent this video to my mom. Her dog is very much like the dog in the video--barks insanely intensely and loudly at anyone who starts to walk out the front door, have a conversation with another human, make gestures with their hands, choose not to throw a ball, choose to throw a ball, etc. etc. In other words "a corgi". As the video makes clear, it takes a lot of patience and commitment to train the dog--a bit more than my mom has been able to invest. She hired a professional trainer to come to the house a few times and show her what to do. They made progress, but my mom hasn't followed through on what she learned as much as is needed. It's hard.
posted by polecat at 5:52 PM on November 20, 2024 [1 favorite]