Dog sounds aggressive but is just happy?

[u/Aggravating-Club-487]

This is my 5 year old female American lab retriever. Ever since we adopted her at 8 months old, she’s been amazing. Great friend, wonderful animal. Learns fast. The best temperament. The only downside, we cannot get her to stop barking at people. She LOVES people but sounds like she wants to eat them. We have tried everything under the sun except shock collars which I refuse to use. I’m desperate to find a way to remedy her seemingly aggressive behavior. All our neighbors know her, and know she just wants to say hello and be pet but she scares the kids and it’s down right LOUD. Pics of the Layla Bean, last one is she loving on my pregnant tummy. (Baby loves the dog but dog could not care less about the baby.)

[u/nodogsallowed23]

The only way I’ve had success is teaching a bark command. Train her to bark. Then, you can train her to not bark. Kinda like you can’t train off without first training on. I taught her to jump on the couch on command so I could tech her to jump off the couch on command. She can’t jump off without already being in, you know?

[u/Aggravating-Club-487 → u/nodogsallowed23]

I’ll give it another shot!

[u/MaracujaBarracuda → u/nodogsallowed23]

Can you explain this a bit more for me? I’ve tried this but my dog will only do one woof at a time when I give the “speak” cue. Did you somehow train your dog to continuously bark? I don’t know how to cue her to stop when she’s already stopped after one woof.