How to Teach Your Dog to Speak

Let your dog's voice be heard — at the right times — with Dog Father 360's step-by-step tutorial for teaching your dog how to speak. 

As with any trick training it’s best to practice in small sessions that last 5-10 minutes and you can work in multiple little sessions throughout your day. It’s important to take breaks when teaching your dog a new command or trick.  Let's begin! 

How to Teach Your Dog to Speak Step 1:

Have your high value rewards in your pocket or a treat pouch so they are easy to grab and you can reward your dog in a timely manner once they have barked.

Step 2:

Find what makes your dog bark! This may be the most challenging part of this command because different dogs will bark at different triggers. Remember to be patient with your dog and try a few things to see what makes them bark. Some general actions that can make dogs bark are: playing with a toy, squeaking a toy, knocking on the wall or the door, barking yourself or making noises, or just acting silly and having lots of energy around your dog. For my dog she barks when I tease her with the toy we are playing with. 

Step 3: 

Once you get your dog to bark QUICKLY reward with a treat and a “YES” so your dog understands that you want the bark. You are trying to mark the moment when your dog chooses to bark and are repeating what makes them bark over and over. Think of what is making your dog bark as the “trigger”. In our video you can see when I shake the toy at my dog she barks, so that is her trigger and I reward her when she barks. 

Step 4:

Start combining the trigger with the hand signal, known as the visual cue, you are going to have for “Speak”. My hand signal is my thumb and 4 fingers clapping together like my hand is talking. You are going to incorporate the hand signal before you introduce the command word. When I create the trigger with my dog I am using my hand signal at the same time. 

Step 5:

Once you see the pattern of your dog barking with their trigger and hand signal you can introduce your “Speak” command, known as the verbal cue. It’s important not to rush this step . Dogs unfortunately can not speak English so they won’t understand when you say “Speak” until they recognize that it means the same thing as the hand signal that goes with the trigger. You will be combining your trigger, hand signal, and saying your command word “Speak” at the same time for now.

Step 6:

Take the trigger away to see if the visual and verbal cue combination can replace it as the new triggers to make your dog bark. With successful repetitions you can expand to using just the command word or just the hand signal. I recommend practicing with both cues.