Teach Your Dog To 'Tell Me'

Written by Lynnette on February 7, 2007 | Comments (0)

We use "Tell me" whenever we want our dog to get our attention about something.

This is helpful when getting your dog used to the idea that he must "tell you" when he needs to go outside. (Before our dogs go out they must tell us, then they have to sit patiently by the back door before we'll open it and let them outside.)

Or, if he wants to tell you there's a stranger nearby. (Or in our case, the mail has arrived.)

Or, so he can tell you when he's hungry. (Yep, our dogs do this - once a day, like clockwork.)

Or, if he wants to alert you that the water bowl is empty. (Yep, they do this too.)

How To Teach Your Dog "Tell Me"

1. It's basically the same as teaching your dog to "Speak". But we don't really like a loud bark, so we have taught our dogs to actually "Whisper".

2. With your dog seated in front of you. Stare him right in the eyes and you whisper "tell me" repeatedly until he's so confused about what you want that he barks at you.

3. Give praise and a treat.

4. Then try again... whisper "tell me" until your dog barks.

5. This time immediately say, "Whisper tell me." It seems to work better when we don't say anything at all and just 'mouth' the words. (Jim just mouths the dog words "woof" quietly.) For some reason, these low-key whispers encourage our dogs to whisper back.

That's it! Lots of treats & praise for even the smallest steps toward progress.

6. From there, to associate "tell me" with a specific action (like 'need more water' or 'want to go outside' or 'the phone is ringing') every single time your dog barks during a moment that you want to reinforce (i.e. you actually want him to do bark at these times all the time) then you just add: "Did you tell me? Are you telling me? Good tell me!" whenever he barks.

Eventually, he'll learn to differentiate between the good times to bark, and those times you're not so crazy about his barking. If you ignore the times you don't want him barking, then he will begin to phase those out, because he doesn't get rewarded for them.

But don't forget... you must always give praise and treats whenever your dog barks at the "right" times!

"Tell Me!"
This is Jersey "telling us" (that is, barking). We use the command "Tell me" instead of "Speak"...