training your dog

i am struggling to teach vegas to stay, give a paw etc he can sit down when i give him a treat but i cant seem to teach him anything else i would especially like to teach him to stay as this would come in handy when outside. i must say he is toilet trained which he picked up very quickly but just cant seem to move on with him he is nearly 7 months now what should he know by now?

Mine is just over 8 months. She knows Sit, Down, Stay, sometimes she can Paw! She partially knows heel. She walks almost all times on my left when we are walking. When I say "Heel" she sometimes goes to my left and starts walking with me. Once she has mastered that and uis disciplined a little, maybe I can try walking her off lead. That won't be for a while lol. Anyways I made Mya stay by putting a treat on the ground near her, and made sure she didnt move untilk I said, "OK". I did that by kind of making her stay and when she moved I said "NO" in a stern voice. Continued it and it eventually worked.

I had lots of trouble teaching Beau "stay" too. Every time I gave the hand-signal he would think this was his cue to start pouncing on my hand. He finally got it, and now I can get him to stay while I walk quite a distance.

Here are a few things that might help.

For a stay & recall:

Get a friend to hold his lead while you make him sit, give a treat & then give the stay command & hand signal (like a police man giving the stop signal). At doggy training we always start with our left foot when heeling (getting the dog to walk beside us), but we walk off starting with our right foot if we want him to stay.

When you get a little distance from him, give the come command & hand signals (a large V in the air with your arms), and get your friend to let go of the lead. When he runs to you, make him sit in front of you & then rewards.

For a stay & you return to him:

You can do something similar as above, except that you return to him & reward. You can tie his lead to a fence, or even tell him to stay behind a barrier like your screen door, until he understand what it is all about.

Actually, at our obedience class we use "wait" & "stay" which are different. We use "wait" if we are going to call the dog to us, and we use our left hand for the signal. We use "stay" and the right hand for when the dog most not move off at all, but must wait for us to return to him.

When you think that he will never learn it, just persevere, making if fun and eventually he will surprise you by doing it. Start with only a very small distance. For example, you might get him to sit & stay and you will only take one step then quickly step back, praise & reward. Then after time, you will take 2 steps. He will get it.

I've been attending dog training classes since we got Holly. I took her to puppy school when she was younger and now she goes to dog school haha. Its been great for her. She gets daily walks in a group with larger and smaller dogs, and all of this is off lead, allowing the group to form a pack and her to be socialised. Its fantastic learning about dog psychology. She nearly always walks to heel when on these walks unless she finds one of her 'friends' and they will play along together. There were a few things I had difficulty teaching her, and I was becoming extremely frustrated, however the great thing about being member of a group is that they can watch what you are doing and point out where you are going wrong. Its usually something so small, a certain movement or something that throws the dog off, which you would never have picked up on yourself.Theres really not much she cant do yet (although i dont let her jump if i can help it! ). Oh, she's 8 months today!!!

Oh also meant to say - like Caraline, we use 'wait' and 'stay' as two different things!!!

Maverick and I just finished a 6 week class for basic training. Now he has a least a 1 min sit stay and a 3 min down stay. Here's what they had us do in class...

1. heel your dog and then come to a stop and sit the dog
2. give dog stay command (voice and hand sign)
3. take one step to your right if the dog moves put it back where is was and give command again and try again.
4. if no movement give praise and repeat command and step in front of the dog toe to toe tell it good stay
5. step back to the side of the dog tell them good stay wait a moment and give them a release word because you don't want them to think soon as you get back to their side it's ok to move.

Once they stay with you next to them you can keep moving further away and start with distractions... just make sure the distraction don't call the dogs name or call come. Just have them walk past or drop treats or a toy... works wonders for my dog.

Another thing they had us do with training for sits and downs was to have them not move from the position until you gave them the release word since thats almost like a mini stay.

Good luck

Armani finished his puppy class too recently. He flunked the part about downing! I just can't get him to down. If he does down, it's when I get him a treat to chew on while he's in the down. But soon as it's gone he's up again <grrrrr>
Also on stay he wiggles so much that he can't stay in a position very long! I know I should work every day, but can't find the time either. So it's alot of my fault!

I'd suggest enrolling in a positive-methods based class (eg rewards based, not a class that uses choke chains and leash 'pops') to train. This is much easier as a way of learning to give consistent and clear messages to your dog to enable them to learn commands -- it is very easy to simply confuse them or give half and half messages that the dog learns means, it doesn;t really matter if I pay attention or not. Note it is not the DOG that is not learning, it is US that have the problem of not knowing how to teach in a way the dog really understands.

Also: 7 months is only a puppy -- a dog that young will not have the attention span or self control to stay for more than a few minutes anyway. You need to start from just a few seconds of 'stay' and gradually, over m,any weeks, work up to a long down stay. You probably need to rethink your expectations at this age with the dog;s actual abilities, to avoid disappointment and any frustration or annoyance.

I also recommend as always getting a good training manual such as one by Dr Ian Dunbar -- you can order his books thru Amazon in the UK.

It is almost always the owner that needs to be trained in how to train a dog -- the dogs almost always are very motivated to learn, but we don;t use clear methods to teach and hence -- they don;t ever really 'get it'. That is why an actual class with a professional trainer is much more productive for almost everyone.

A class really helps. I was told not to give the dog opportunity to fail the command so don't walk off too far. One step at first then two etc. Try without treats too or they just have more of an urge to run to you. We were told not to give eye contact while walking back to our dogs. It might help to have someone hold Vegas while you give the command so he can't follow you, he may have no clue what you are asking and this helps.