Training the Reliable Watch Dog - Friend of Foe? - Part 2
By Aidan Bindoff
If Home Security is important to you, then you may want to train your dog to be a reliable watch dog. Some dogs are natural watch dogs, but these dogs will still need training otherwise they can quickly become nuisance barkers. Other dogs are not natural watch dogs, but with training can become excellent watch dogs.
In Part 1 of this two part article we looked at teaching our dog to bark and shush on cue. In Part 2 we will look at teaching our dog to discriminate between normal sounds and a possible intruder. It is important to have this discrimination if our dog is to be an effective and reliable watch dog, and not just a nuisance barker.
If we have followed Part 1 of this article closely and already taught a reliable bark and shush on cue, then Part 2 is relatively easy. Without a reliable bark and shush on cue there is no point in continuing, as to do so will only add confusion and will make for a very unreliable watch dog indeed.
We need to teach our dog to discriminate between normal sounds and a possible intruder. Discrimination training is best achieved using set-ups so that we have almost complete control over what our dog learns.
It is important to enlist the help of friends in training your watch dog. Start off with your dog inside and have your friend come onto the property and make a noise outside (fairly obvious at first). Cue your dog to bark (if he hasn't already), then praise and reward. If your dog stops barking at this point, praise and reward again - otherwise use your shush cue. Don't forget to praise and reward quiet, barking should not be excessive or prolonged and it is very important for your dog to learn that quiet, calm behavior is rewarded. You don't want your dog to become "the boy who cried wolf"!
You can repeat this whole procedure several times per session, with a short break in between trials. Don't expect great results in the very first session. There is a lot of information for your dog to absorb here, and a lot to figure out. It may seem obvious to us, but it's not obvious to our dogs. By repeating these set-ups regularly and praising and rewarding the correct responses, your dog gets to build a picture of what to do, when to do it, and how long for.
Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine, a free ezine for people training their own dogs. Each edition has easy to use training advice based on positive reinforcement methods. Subscribers have access to a large archive of back-issues they can consult for just about any behavior or behavior problem.
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This page was updated on 20-Feb-2007
