the problem with the above posted method is that my cattle dog mix is too smart for that. You are rewarding him for barking.
Actually, you're simply putting the bark on cue. It's called a DRI (differential reinforcement of an incompatible behavior) It's done all the time by behaviorists and trainers. And it works when it's done correctly and in a systematic way. What you do then, is to reinforce the quiet when cued. The dog then learns the two behaviors on cue, which are mutually exclusive to one another. The dog can't bark if he's being quiet and visa versa. Both are trained in such a way that the dog learns to generalize the behavior in many contexts....gives correct responses backwards and forward, can do it any place, any time.
It's the same thing as teaching a dog to jump and teaching a dog not to jump. Or teaching a dog to stand and teaching a dog to lie down, teaching a dog to wait for his tug toy and teaching him to get his tug toy. Two behaviors, two cues.
If it didn't work on your dog, it is not because the dog is smarter than another. Intelligence has very little to do with it. Doggie zen has more to do with it. Control yourself now and you'll get to bark in a minute after you do what I ask. (And I give you a
VERY good reason to do what I ask, a highly profitable one) Come when I call you and THEN you'll get to chase the squirrel. By not doing it, you'll get to do it. Dogs learn some self control this way and you see it applied in all kinds of training tasks once they get use to this kind of learning.
Then, down the road the unwanted behavior is faded because the reinforcer isn't much...not a high value treat like the quieting gets. The opposite...the quiet when cued has a much, much higher pay off than the barking which is interrupted by the cue, once learned. If the dog
can't bark, (because of learned cue) he can't be self reinforced for barking. And you see a lot of unnecessary, incessent barking die back. The dog also comes to anticipate the reward for stopping and learns to quiet himself after a few "thank you" barks. A proper reinforcement schedule needs to be installed.
Training using the laws of learning behavior work. That is conclusive. It's done all the time with
all kinds of dogs.
As far as aversives, if they don't cause pain, discomfort, fear or some other cause of avoidance, they
won't stop a behavior. Something has to either be rewarding or something the dog wants to avoid. I don't care for methods which cause
avoidance behaviors in dogs, regardless of what degree of pain they cause. There's too much risk for fall out...to many side effects of avoidance behaviors. If it's a matter of life or death, then you do what ya gotta do at the time. But I see far too often people taking short cuts for lack of incentive to find out how to train their dogs.