How to stop barking?

[Disenchanted3]

My pugs happily sit at my feet or on my knee of an evening but they have a real tendancy to bark.

Its usually if its quiet and they hear a sound outsid, if the TV cahnges over to a new programme, just anything really.

They bark at the door, at the russling trees in the garden.

They also jump up when they bark and run over to the TV which startles my daughter sometimes.

They are brilliant dogs in every other way, really loving well behaved dogs but I really would like some help in quiteing them down.

If I tell themn to shush they seem to think Im joining in

Ignore them, if you reply or shout at them etc, you are only giving them the attention they are looking for.

Yep, you gotta ignore them.

If you're feeling dedicated you can teach them to bark on command. Then you can teach them to shut up on command

I have had more success with asking them to do something incompatible with barking - for example, reinforce the sit command heavily and then when they start get them to sit down. My barker finds it really hard to shout at passers by out of the window at the same time as he's sitting nicely!

Oh I like the sit thing.

See if I ignore them they just bark for ages! Theres 3 of them altogether so once they start its hard to calm them down, my neighbours must love us!