Hehe, good point Amber about the bones!

Oh well, this ground work stuff is important, so I'm sure it doesn't hurt if we repeat eachother's words a little bit.

Yes, we are all full of info and we're good little students
This site is addictive... once you learn a little bit, you come back for more and more. Then again, training never does end does it?

Really though, if your wife joins the board she'll have an on demand source of information, experience and support for all the dog's training, rearing, feeding, health etc. etc. etc. issues!

I have to agree to the good advise you got from , Connie,Yuko,Amber.
The difference for me in training, is never use "no" as a heeling command or with it, if your dog pulls on the leash, tell him heal, and give him a pop with the leash, always reafirm the command "heal" "NO" can mean many things to a dog, and lets say you have him off leash or a long line and he gets a bit far from you and you want him to get back in a healing position, if you say "no" even followed by "heal" it sounds negative ,you want him to be happy to "heal" but if you say "heal" he knows what that command is , and it sounds more positive then hearing "NO" on a walk.A walk should be fun with your dog, reinforcing commands should be with commands only, drop the "NO".That is my experience anyways, you want your dog to be happy in the heal position, not low to the ground and not enjoying being at your side. It's never too late to establish anything with your dog , he is still very young.You can start now with establishing pack leader ship , respect, and good obedience.Never too late, dogs live in the moment.Good luck with him, I think when you apply all the advises you have gotten you'll be on a good path for great results.Be consistent, that is the key

Good point, Angelique (as always)!

I wasn't referring to the heel command though; just basic walking on a leash.

The dog doesn't have to stay by your side, but he is expected not to pull your arm off.

Ed shows this in his dominant dog DVD and it's a very clear demonstration. You don't give any commands, like "heel", you just walk and expect the dog to respect your lead.
It's not so much a training issue as it is an inappropriate pack behaviour.

Of course Angelique is right about the heeling work; once you get into obedience training, you want to use lots of motivation to get your dog excited about the work.

There should always be a clear difference in the dog's mind between just walking calmly on a lead and doing a formal "heel".

Probably too early to be teaching heel for now... ground work first, training once you've established leadership :-)

Thank you everyone for the quick and very good advice. The wife and I were discussing getting a Kong already. I have read many places that these are great toys to keep your dog entertained and they last a good while. On the issue of not using "No" though, I was looking at this from the side of using markers. I mean when I am walking him should I not use any marker words such as No along with a leash correction to show him that what he is doing is wrong? I am very interested in the use of markers since reading Ed's article on them. As for my wife joining the boards though, she is more of a reader than a poster. I will recommend it to her, but she will probably rather just browse the boards or get me to ask all the questions

Ok Yuko ,I fully understand, but maybe just on a walk no heal but no pulling ,I would simply say nothin other than give him a pop."NO" to me is not something I use for any walks (casual or obedience training) if he eats something on the ground (let's say) during our casual walk I would use "foowey" followed by "let's go" . NO is used in the house for so many things (for most people) dog gets on the couch "no" bite shoes"no" ectt.. so for me I like to leave "no" in the house(sort of speak) but not for walks.Does that make sense? At least that is what I have done, hey it does not mean I'm right

I understand sort of Angelique. I dont want to confuse Kizer with words that im going to be using at other times. I will try to find a word that I wont use very often as a marker for the bad things. I was going to use Yes as a good marker because I know if I used Good then I would confuse him if I said good boy which I know I would be prone to do. I will put some thought to this and see if I can come up with a better word. I still have time to work on it. The wife and I spoke about this and for now she is going to keep him in the crate in the house at night and let him out back during the day until I get home. She is only doing this because she is having to go take care of her grandmother for a week and while she is gone her mom will be dog-sitting. We do not want to start the training formally until we know we are going to be around and can keep it constant.

Marker training is an excellent tool in obedience because you can mark a specific behaviour that you want (like eye contact) as opposed to giving general praise.

However if you're just praising the dog, you can say anything. It's all in the tone and inflection of your voice.

For example, if you're training the come command; your dog is sniffing at something on the ground and you give the command come. When he stops what he's doing and turns to come to you, you say "yes" to mark his decision to turn around.
Then when he reaches you, you can just repeat "good boy, good dog etc." in a happy voice.

If you ask the dog to "down", you mark with a YES! as soon as he lies down. But then if you're asking him to stay, you can keep saying "good stay, nice stay" in a soothing voice to show him that you're happy with what he's doing.

Markers are to pinpoint an exact moment in time.

As for the "NO", it just means that you disapprove of whatever the dog is doing and it means "stop what you're doing". It's a warning to the dog.

There's no need to have more than one word for the NO.

If he pulls on the leash, it's only fair to give him a warning and a chance to do the right thing before popping him and delivering a physical correction. I agree with Ed on this; the old school method of training a dog to walk nicely at heel was to randomly change directions while you walked and jerk the dog each time.

The reasoning was that by jerking the dog around he'd learn to watch you. Of course this is unfair to the dog, because you're correcting him for something he hasn't learned yet.

I'm sure that Ed has written about this on his site... he also talks about it in his DVDs and I think he makes an excellent point.

If your dog is doing something wrong, say NO and give him a second or two to make the right choice. Give him a chance to comply before giving him a physical correction. If he ignores the NO, then a leash correction follows.

It doesn't matter if the bad behaviour is in the house, on a walk, during obedience work etc. NO means NO. You'll only confuse him if you start using different words to correct for different behaviours; dogs need to learn NO (or an equivalent word) but once they learn it you must apply it consistently.

Then again, dogs respond very well to the tone of voice that you use. If you use a sharp disapproving tone, you could probably say just about any word to get him to stop whatever he's doing.

Why complicate life for yourself and your dog though?
Use YES for your obedience marker and NO for your warning.
YES is always followed by a reward and NO is followed by a correction. This makes it perfectly clear in the dog's mind and he learns to react to it without having to think about it.
Doesn't get any simpler than that, and dogs respond to simplicity

I also use a "warning" sound...sort of a ah ah ah sound. This is especially useful when my pup starts to act like he's going get in the trash but before he really gets in there. I look at it as giving him a chance to "rethink" and it has a really good success rate. I do this because for my dogs, for most things, a NO is in and of itself a correction. And that gives me a chance to heap on the praise when they choose wisely!

Some more great advice. Looks like I will be definately picking up a copy of the Obedience DVD, and I will try those things you mentioned with the markers Yuko. Thanks again for all the help.

The one commmand I use often (has nothing to do with the sport I do with them ) is, "let's go" when we go for casual walks.
They know that word like they know meat.It's a pleasant word to them and fun they know with that saying comes fun.I'll be in the house and want them to hop in the car ,I'll open the garage door and say "let's go" they go crazy, I can be far in the desert with all 3 and they are spread out smelling stuff doing whatever and I'll say " let's go" and they come running full blast to me and look at me like where are we going , the ylook happy and excited and follow ahead........Just an idea.