What is the most important thing to teach?

[*Pauline*]

I have always found "off" very usefull to have your dog understand......

"off" the chair,
"off" the stinky left behind poo in the park!
"off" from anything dropped and broken on the floor,
"off" from anything on the gound outside,

there are loads of them

You are so funny Alison!!!!

[BarbMazz]

My trainer had me teach my dogs "Touch", which I use for recall. I like it better than "come" or whatever, because they have to actually "Touch" my hand, which gives them something to do other than just come to where I am. They know they need to actually touch my hand for their reward so they hightail it right over to me.

[arasara]

Barb -

That's such a good idea - I never thought of that.

Thanks

[Justine]

i use HERE.To come back.Wait is to wait.SHOW ME TEETH to open the mouth.LEAVE IT is good because he will take ellas dummies.SHOW ME when he has stolen something like socks,knickers pref.dirty ones oh and of course ellas dummies oh and what he takes out of the drain outside.

[Lani]

LOL - this is a funny chain.

My sister uses "Leave it" for when her dog Razz tries to hump Lucky. It works - he "leaves it".

That said, "Leave it: has lots of other practical and potentially life saving applications - say for example if you drop something dangerous like a bottle of pills or household chemicals on the floor. That's a key command to ensure your dog knows.

Same thing with "come" - if the dog has a reliable recall then you'll increase the chances he'll return to you if he gets loose from his leash for some reason and is running up the street.

I think those are the two most essential commands

[katc10]

So far Indy knows the following:

SIT - obvious, and when excited, goes straight to down
DOWN - obvious, but when anxious I only get a half down, or front down, back up, lol
COME HERE - to come, except when mommy says it in her mad voice, then she gets scared and wants to go straight to her kennel cause she knows she's in trouble
UP - to get on the bed, couch, in the car, etc.
GO HOME - when she is in trouble it means go to her kennel, and when we are outside it means go up to the house. The other day I used it to get her to go home while I stayed out with Charlie to get him to potty, and she went to the front door and waited for Charlie and I to finish.
DROP IT - to drop her toy or something she isn't supposed to have
POTTY - this is an obvious one
SPEAK - to bark, which Cathy can attest to is very funny, because Indy has to wiggle and dance around to get a good bark out if she's too excited


She also knows various toys on command, such as BALL and KONG and sometimes BEAR (used for any stuffed animal). She will race around the house trying to find the toy she is supposed to get. It's hilarious.

So far we are working on COME HERE, SIT and POTTY with Charlie. Once he gets those, we'll move on to more.

I tried ROLL OVER with Indy when she was a puppy, but she hated it. I think I might work on HEEL and SHAKE next.

[Mom_of_2_Cavies]

My dogs respond really promptly to "COOKIE!!!!" Doesn't matter what they're doing, they stop and pay attention to me. We're working on the other important ones, which they somehow or other don't view as being quite as important...

Seriously, now that we've added Milly to the family I'm going to get out my clicker again and get down to business. Pepper needs a major refresher, and Milly...well, she does come pretty well when you call her name, but she needs to get a few commands down.

[Scouty girl]

Both of mine understand 'treat', snaps them right into an attention mode.

I didn't realize how many times during the day I said 'ready'. Before we do anything I say 'ready' and they both look at me. I've been very lucky with Scout I have a very big back yard thats fenced. When I'm ready to go in I say 'ready' and she comes right in. I've often thought how easy it would be for her just to run around the yard playing catch me if you can, but for some reason she responds to 'ready'.

My most important word is 'stop'. I'm trying to teach Scout that now. Breeze knows stop very well. She also knows 'don't go on the road'. My front yard isn't fenced and she goes out there with me without a leash. If she goes towards the road i say , don't go on the road', and she turns around, sometimes walking along the edge, i guess that's an independence thing who knows.

[Lisa_T]

I wouldn't trust any dog off lead for a recall or stop/stay now. I always thought Holly had a good recall, and she always responded to 'stop'... for all it mattered, since she was only ever off lead in the park. But then came the day when she ran out of the park and on to the road to the car (cos the lazy princess knew mum and nanny were there!). If it had been any day but Sunday....

I now train them both to the whistle. It's known that dogs respond to your tone of voice, and it's very hard to stay clam and authoritative when you're terrified cos the dog has done a runner. The whistle will always sound the same. It brough Amber racing back once in the park when she took off acroos to the other side of a HUGE field after a big black ( ) dog. I know she would have ignored a verbal recall.

Words my pair know...

Dindins..

Bed time/ sleepy time- (they usually jump onto the sofa and lie down as if to say, 'We'll sleep here, honest!)

I'm going out- said before I leave.

Go and find your ring- Holly will go and find her rope ring, searching the entire house and garden if need be.

[name] need out?- re loo.

Amber go widdle?- obvious.

Sweeties- great excitement from Amber..

AhAh- buzz off and leave it. Or a sharp loud AH!- useful when I dropped an antibiotic the other day and Amber nearly got it before I did!

Go and get it and bring it back- for playing fetch.

commands:
sit, stay, heel.

Tricks:
give me five
Barking when the phone rings (Holly- SOOOO useful for me). I trained that by praising her the first time she barked at the funny noise, and then by ringing my phone from a mobile- and praising and treating when she barked. She's excellent at it now- and oddly will only EVER do it for me, and in my house. She seems to know it's something I specially need, and not a generic thing.

Actually, of all of these the only ones that were formally taught were the 'proper' commands and the phone thing. Everything else just happened.

Aren't dogs amazing?

[TKC]

Self Control

Dog and Owner

Exercises such as

Loose lead walking (no verbal or visual cue)
Leave/Take
Sit for greeting
Relax down