Dog Health Questions: Watch dog training?

My golden retriever/chow mix barks at strange animals/people when they come around the house. That's fine with me. But when she's barking at 3am because there is a jack rabbit on the lawn, it's kind of annoying. How do I get her to stop barking after I've checked and seen it's not important? More or less: thank you for telling me, it's nothing to get excited about, be quiet now.

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I would teach her the "watch me" command. It is a command designed to get a dog to look and pay attention to you. This usually diverts them from whatever had previously caught their attention. You can practice this command at any time of the day, even in your free time.

Usually, to teach a dog to do this, you should raise a finger in front of your face, not as if you are scolding them, but as if you are about to say "shhh!"
Say "watch me!" to her. If she looks, give her a treat and praise her.

However, if you are not so lucky to catch her attention the first time, try calling her name or making a smooch noise, anything to get her to look up at you. Eventually, with practice, she will understand.

Also, the command to "come" is useful as well, if she doesn't already know it.

Next time she barks at something uninteresting, tell her to "watch you," then praise her for being quiet, and say "Ok, come on." Lead your dog away from the bothersome object outside.

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• it's a problem. What you need to do is first get the dog to bark, and then to stop. If you can structure a training time providing something you KNOW the dog will bark at...then teach him a stop command, you'd have it. The middle of the night when he is barking AT something is not the time to teach him anything.
  
  practice...stimulation, bark, ok, come here, quiet...at a time when you can control all the factors...