My Saint Bernard pup Gershwin,turned five months old on Feb 26th, and I took this video in the early morning to show some disbelievers that a five month old puppy is more than ready for obedience training. All my dogs can execute the sit, stay, down and recall commands by four months of age. The key, I find, is to keep the sessions VERY short, frequent and fun.
For some reason when I uploaded the video, the audio lags a bit behind so it might look like Gershwin is doing the commands before I say it:

http://www.youtube.com/?v=2TUIQMRO1f4

It does not work, the video, I believe you can have extremely obedient pup at 5 mos. I just prefer the dog kind of develop "personality", support drives and maybe respond to basic commands, learn a bit focus: iam new to focus and the dog looking at me all the time, we did not requiered that back in a day.
I know a lot of obedient dogs at 6 mos almost ready to even get the SVV/obedience part done, but they lack on protection side. That was my observation. Maybe somebody has different opinion.
Martina

One does not have to exclude the other if you know what you are doing. A good trainer works with the puppy's natural temperment while training.

Yaz,
Good luck and a lot of fun. That is all. Just gave you mo. that is all.
Martina

Thanks, Martina. The link was broken but I have fixed it:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VtS2ClWAb6k

Cheers,


Yaz

They can be trained at that age, no doubt about it. I just don't think it's really necesary so long as the dog obeys you in general...there's a 'limit' to what you can do obviously, so I don't bother too much. I do sporadic training throughout the first six months or so, and even then at 3 or 4 months my dogs can understand commands alone (i.e. can turn my back and say "Platz" and they'll do it). I start 'formal' lessons when the dog is old enough for drive work, mostly because I'm interested in speed and precision obedience in the field. But in general, yes, obedience can be done as early as 8 weeks.

I'm with you kristine, besides I like to let puppies be puppies!

Nice work Yaz <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Beautiful and well trained St. Bernard! I'm with you on training early. When you have a dog that's going to weigh well over 100 lbs, it's never too soon to start training. It's nice to see intelligent and responsible owners with the big dogs <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Keep up the good work!

12 weeks, sit stay.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/barbara62572/Savannah0001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/barbara62572/MyPictures0001.jpg

I am new to this I just got a 17 week old puppy and Im so confused one minute it says for two weeks dont let it off the leash, or be touched by family,i fell as if Im totally messing him up. Tell me how you did this <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

April, before we get too excited about the "obedience" shown on this video, please look at it with a knowledgeable eye.

Yes, the dog is five months old. But the obedience is minimal here, and the handling is awful - I'm missing the "Kick butt" that the owner is bragging about.

Mostly I see the training of bad habits - we start off with a "come' command given three times resulting in a very slow come to handler. We have a lot of the video taken up with long "stays" which aren't that difficult with a low drive breed. The dog then breaks the stay and *then* the handler calls the dog. The dogs goes into a sit, but them goes into a "down", with the handler giving the 'down" command after the dog has done it of it's own accord. The dog then breaks another sit and is then given the "come" command. Then a "sit" command" where the dog goes into a "down" ( and the handler giving the "down" command *again* after the dog has done it on it's own.

Sorry, my analysis may sound mean here, but where the video owner is labeling this video as "kick butt" obedience, I see obedience that I certainly wouldn't accept from my students. And I see a dog being trained to obey commands on the third reputation and a lot of commands given *after* the dog has already done it on it's own.
Not "kick butt' in anybody's book.