Folks there is just no reason for a dog to drive you or your neighbors crazy barking. Dogs should be taught to Bark on command, be quiet on command and it should be remembered that they always get three free barks. We don’t want them to stay quiet all the time or how will they tell you about an intruder? The best way I know to train a dog to be quiet is to associate commands with behavior. Step one is train the dog to speak on command. Step two, now they have a “No Speak” built in. Call it quiet or whatever you would like, but when a dog has commands associated with the behavior, it is easier to get the desired behavior.

Now that they have learned to speak, now when they are quiet, we reward them with a treat and chain together the command “Good Quiet” or “Good Shush” each time the are quiet. Then you can start a game of going back and forth between the commands and reward them only for the right behaviors. It really is simple, you just need t take some time to do it.