HOST ALERT Question

Hi,
I`m testing some alerting issues. But when i change a IP address of a host to see if the alerting is working it does the following:

Host Down[02-10-2009 12:23:10] HOST ALERT: switch;DOWN;SOFT;6;CRITICAL - Host Unreachable (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
Host Down[02-10-2009 12:22:00] HOST ALERT: switch;DOWN;SOFT;5;CRITICAL - Host Unreachable (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
Host Down[02-10-2009 12:20:50] HOST ALERT: switch;DOWN;SOFT;4;CRITICAL - Host Unreachable (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
Host Down[02-10-2009 12:19:40] HOST ALERT: switch;DOWN;SOFT;3;CRITICAL - Host Unreachable (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
Host Down[02-10-2009 12:18:30] HOST ALERT: switch;DOWN;SOFT;2;CRITICAL - Host Unreachable (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
Host Down[02-10-2009 12:18:10] HOST ALERT: switch;DOWN;SOFT;1;CRITICAL - Host Unreachable (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)

And it goes on to 10 times.

Is it possible to change this to lets say 5 times?

thx in advanced