Alert barking is something that I certainly wouldn't want to suppress with punishment or correction so I think your wise to avoid any type of correctional collar, it may limit his barking, but it could have undesirable side effects (something punishment has a long track record of producing) such as conditioning your guy to be more timid around visitors, or actually become nervous/ defensive or he might not really care about the correction at all and his behavior might just stay unchanged.
Both Duke and Mavrick alert bark, so it's a daily thing here. I have lots of kibble stashed around the house. I'm happy with a few alert barks, but I don't need to hear about it forever, so after the first 2-3 barks I say something to get their attention (it seems to have become "Thanks guys") and then start dishing out treats to the first dog that runs over to me. Which is usually Duke as we have a bigger reinforcement history together, where as Mavrick has only lived with me for 6 weeks. As soon as Mavrick see's Duke getting treats he could care less about alerting and runs over to get some treats.
At that point I usually have both lie down next to me and just feed. Sometimes either one will alert for a moment, I just cue "Shush" (which I have previously associated with them being quiet) and continue to feed a pretty high rate of reinforcement.
If someone is actually coming down the stairs (as we live in a basement apartment) then I usually have a leash on Duke (who has a lovely behavior of charging people with a high pitched insecure howl/bark) and feed them both a very high rate of reinforcement and then let them go visit.
This works well for me, but I've really had to make sure I have a good supply of kibble and bits of yummier stuff easily accessaible. I have seen alot of improvement over the last 6 weeks, specifically with Duke's charging behaviour almost disappearing (which we got lots of practice with over the holidays) and now he just holds his down until the person is in plain view (at which point he is excited to run up to see them).
I do not know about you but I'd rather get a lot of chances to reinforce, bark 2-3 times then stop then have to constantly get up and do a time-out scenario. I think a time-out scenario would be a great addition to a training plan but I'm not sure how quickly your dog would make the connection, but that’s purely just my 2 cents I don't have al ot of experience with changing alert barking other then with my two.
Lastly just wanted to say, teaching your dog to bark on cue is a longer process that I avoided as both Duke and Mavrick pick up on things quickly and its not a behavior at this time I want being offered at me, it's certainly a well known way to get rid of an unwanted behavior, by putting it on cue and then only cueing it when you want, but its also a long process that I didn't feel like pursuing.
Kayla
