so sensitive... am i a bad mum for doing this?

[BillysMum]

Billy is now 5 and a half months old and i love having him, he always wants to be with me, follows me everywhere and just wants to please me all the time 

The problem i've been having is when i take him and Alfie for a walk, Billy will run after the ball, bring it back, throw it at me and then bark non stop till i throw it again  i've been trying so hard to stop the barking, especially when i stop to talk to people cos he will bark the whole time. I have been trying not to throw the ball until he's quiet but he's just not getting it  so today i took a water pistol with me, ideally i would prefer to be able to stop him barking without uising it but i don't want the barking to become a habit. So when he barked, i squirted him once, not in the face but on his body and was totally surprised by his reaction  He then didn't want to even chase the ball, he kept by my side and i had to make a big fuss of him and encourage him to chase the ball  after a minute or so he was happily chasing it again and hardly barking for it after he'd thrown it at me

I don't mind him barking when he's playing, i just wanted to stop him barking when i was talking to people so i decided not to use the pistol unless i was talking and he was barking as i felt awful that he reacted the way he did!

A man with 2 dogs stopped to chat and sure enough Billy barked for the ball to be thrown, i told him to be quiet but he continued so i only had to show him the water pistol and he shot between my legs and laid at my feet and i then made a fuss of him for being quiet.

My question is.... is what i'm doing harmful in anyway? it definately worked becos he didn't bark much at all for the ball and i only used the pistol once but i don't want to make him scared of me or make him unhappy. Its the first time i've ever had to "tell him off" for something so i was surprised at how sensitive he is.

Am i a bad mum? 

[lyn]

i tried a water pistol with paddy when he barked madly for something.he thought it was wonderful so barked even more for a squirt in the end i taught him to speak on comand then taught him to shut up too

[Helen]

have you tried clicker training?  it's a much more positive type of training than a water pistol....

[Cob-Web]

Your not a bad mum; lots of people, even well respected trainers, use water pistols and other punishment-based training methods combined with positive reinforcement techniques.
In this case, you applied a positive punishment (the water pistol) for barking, as well as a positive reinforcement (the ball was thrown) for being quiet 

Personally, I prefer not to use any form of punishment based training; as you have discovered, it can have undesired or unexpected consequences
If you haven't read a copy of "the Culture Clash" by Jean Donaldson, then I highly recommend it; it provides an excellent insight into how dogs learn, and how each of the reinforcement and punishment consequences work

I can however, totally sympathise with you - Molo is an excited barker, and I get very tired of listening to his voice when we are out walking  It began at agility classes, and has transfered out to our walks and other situations when he is excited 
It is one of the things I intend to address this year using clicker training; it may take longer than some punishment training methods, but both of us enjoy it, and I am more comfortable with this reinforcment method of training 

[BillysMum]

Thank you for your replys.

I do have a clicker but i must admit i'm not entirely sure how to use it properly 

Do you know of any good websites that explain clicker training?

Can i ask how you would use a clicker to stop a dog barking?

It's just that the more i tell Billy to be "quiet" the more he barks at me and it was getting to the point that he was never quiet for me to praise him for it and throw the ball  and ignoring him didn't work either, he'd just walk infront of me, looking at me and barking 

[Cob-Web]

I love Karen Pryors site, even though its a US, not a UK, site
http://www.clickertraining.com/

You may find a clicker training classes near you, the APDT list of trainers includes details of those trainers who can train owners to clicker train:
http://www.apdt.co.uk/list_trainers.asp

It's just that the more i tell Billy to be "quiet" the more he barks at me and it was getting to the point that he was never quiet for me to praise him for it and throw the ball 

Unless you have taught Billy what the word quiet means, then all he can hear is you "barking" back at a him.......... 

The trick to teaching any behaviour is to train the dog to be reliable on command in a low distraction, low stimulation environment first - so once you have taught him what the word quiet" means at home, then you can take the training on the road and teach him that it means the same thing where-ever you are.

If you do a search of COL, there are lots of old threads about clicker training 

Edited to add - Hearing Dog for the Deaf are selling a clicker training DVD, which stars a cocker spaniel pup called Tabby (amongst others) 
http://www.hearingdogs.org.uk/clicker-training.php