More training basics

Sage (green girl) is soon to go to her new home, and we have been compiling videos of her training progress to send along.
Sage has learned that sit can have different positions. It has grown into a "Front" Command and a "Heel" command witch at this point is mostly a return to heel.

Maybe you noticed her eagerness to sit in the video. She is bordering on TOO MUCH sit training. Until her whoa is settled. I would touch on this 1-2 times a week, but work whoa 2 times a day for several weeks, before spending much time cleaning up the position or extending the walk portion of heel.

Sage has learned to target ("touch") my hand, which is a building block of training for several other commands.


Sage extends the target, with some positional work into learning "Down." She does not like this very much and was slow to get it but she is catching on. Still, being a GSP it's hard to figure out a way to be hyper and wiggle while lying down. :)


She also extends touch by learning to ring a bell to ask to go out. This is late to teach this, but she has developed a habit of sitting quietly to ask and that is not working when we are busy. It would seem that you would notice her sitting quietly, as it is UNUSUAL, but I think it becomes the first time you can actively NOT notice her. After some serious regression while the rest of the family was watching her and I was out working other dogs, we had to re-institute the full time crate when mom-Laurie is not inside, and start training a better way to ask. SO here is the beginning of that. (I am ashamed but mistakes provide learning opportunities for us both!)

to continue this she needs to learn to ring it harder. Once she actively knows that touching the bell gets her out, we will do some targeting practice and only click for the harder touches. Then when she touches it hard all the time, we will start to only click for bells ringing loudly. There is some potential confusion for her, as she is very likely to hear the bell make noise at a much softer touch than I do.

Sage still uses her spin trick. It's easy and always gives us something to lighten the mood, and end well on. Overdoing this is WAY BETTER than over doing the sit command. If she has to do a trick for treats with the kids or grandkids... THIS is the trick for her to do for the next few weeks.


This is a good trick to try. After you have been play retrieving and your puppy is excited, offer you puppy something easy to hold, but not a toy. Here she uses a rolled piece of newspaper. If she takes it say "hold" (or fetch or take) and reward her with praise. Then quickly tell her "drop" and take the item back. Reward her with praise AND a treat. Since the item is newspaper and not a toy, once she took it she realized she really didn't want it much and drop comes easily. But once you can reward her for taking it from your hand you might be able to get her to do it again. This is early prevention for refusal issues later. You are TEACHING her to take it, even when it has not flown through the air and even when it is not an exciting toy. This will become more useful than you can imagine!

More often puppies will look at you and be confused, but if your puppy will try to take it capture it and work with it. If not, then I will try to show how to handle that also.