Hello,

This is my first official post here on Leerburg. I have a couple of questions in regards to Ground Work for clarification.

I will be the owner of a Czech dog in a month, 10 month old, 86# male who has such a mellow temperament compared to his sister. I’ll be visiting him between now and the time I get to take him home since the breeder is approximately 30 minutes away. Anyways, my questions about Ground Work:

First and foremost am I correct when it comes to following the Ground Work for an adult?


Isolation Period
When it comes to the isolation period, do I crate the dog in areas where activities are at? Currently I have a crate in the living room and I’m thinking that I should get another for my bedroom.

As far as isolation and the crate go...giving a scenario here, if I’m in the living room working on something or watching t.v. and what not, the dog is to be in his crate the entire time to observe and the only time he is out is strictly to go outside and to eat and drink?

How long is the isolation period to last, or I should ask, how should I know when to proceed to the next step of being out of the crate but on leash in the house?

Graduated to leashed in house phase:
So when a dog moves to be leashed in the house, would I use a drag leash or a leash that I could tether to myself or a chair to keep my dog next to me?

Ground Work and Cars:
Can Ground Work be also extended to car rides, with a seat belt harness? I do want to take my dog with me.

Ground Work and Walks:
Since during the GW phase we’re not doing any formal obedience, it is still okay to teach the dog to mind while on walks?

Welcome! I'm sure a lot more experienced folks here will chime in with their thoughts, but here are mine from recently adopting a 5 year old rescue 2 months ago and going through ground work.

Isolation Period: I think you're fine with the crate in the living room area. We started with the crate in the living room area and after a week or 2 started moving it into our bedroom at night also and had no problems with that. The time period you continue this depends on how the dog behaves while in the crate. Our dog behaved so well and stayed in his crate so much on his own will that after a few weeks we started leaving the crate door open (when we're around and can supervise of course). We now keep his crate open at night in our bedroom (door closed so he can't wonder the rest of the house) and he'll sleep by our bed. If he does anything foolish we will move back in the ground work and back in the crate he goes.

Leash in the house: We started tethering him to us with a 6 ft leash and graduated to a 20 ft cotton long line to give him a little more freedom. He was so well behaved we thought about just letting him free off leash about a month in, but was glad we didn't because he tried to pee on our shoe rack out of the blue and I'm glad I had the long line to stop/correct him. We're 2 months in and he's still on the long line when not in his crate and he's fine with it.

Ground work and walks: Tips I learned from other Leerburg folks... brisk paced walks, handler confidence/leader mentality when leading the walk, teach the "slow" command, if the dog charges forward just because... prong collar/pop corrections, if the dog charges because of fear... try using distractions/redirection.


And the one major key to all areas of ground work and training is... consistency consistency consistency.