Just wonderful hearing such great reports about Quincy and your family, Bob !!!

Sorry to learn of your Health issue, but so glad to know you're fully recovering

Love all my cyber friends & their dogs here, and wish you a much BETTER 2021.

 Quote: Bob Scott

Thanks Connie and Cheri. I'd love to get action going again here on LB. So many good questions and answers here for and from many.

Yes Connie, the Von Stephanitz quote was huge the first time I read it some yrs ago. Some what of an epiphany for an old Koehler fan like me and probably what pushed me into marker training.

That quote clicked for me, too. And it has proved correct over and over and over
again ...

So glad you posted, Candi! It got us a good thread here ...

I said Cheri didn't I. Apologies Candi. I put my reading glasses on tonight.

In re reading my post I should have added that calling the puppy from a sit or down is counter productive to the sit stay or down stay simply because a dog relates reward OR corrections to the very last thing it did. In this case it would be rewarded for the recall and the stay means nothing. Similar processing when a dog is corrected for digging in the yard and you call it to correct it. What was the last thing it did? It came to you and that destroys trust in your recall.

 Quote: Bob Scott

In re reading my post I should have added that calling the puppy from a sit or down is counter productive to the sit stay or down stay simply because a dog relates reward OR corrections to the very last thing it did. In this case it would be rewarded for the recall and the stay means nothing. Similar processing when a dog is corrected for digging in the yard and you call it to correct it. What was the last thing it did? It came to you and that destroys trust in your recall.

Important reminders!

Reward the dog for sitting while he's sitting.

Never call the dog to correct him/her took me some effort to wrap my mind around it, back in the day. Yet it should be so obvious!

Thanks, Bob!

Thanks Connie. Another good reminder Reward a dog while he's sitting.
Absolutely!! the Marker I use is "yes" that not only rewards the dogs behavior but can also be a release. Rewarding a stay command I use a calm "goood" with the reward. This tells the dog its doing good and keep doing it.

I would like to mention a few of the basic "home" commands that are the same basic behavior but but I don't expect crisp, instant compliance. make sense?
For a call at home will use a Come command. In competition I will use a Front command. The difference is what I expect from the dog. With the "come" I expect a brisk response that doesn't have to end in a sit in front finish. With a Competition command I expect the dog to come in running and sit straight in front of me. Same thing with just walking the dog and heeling the dog. Walking the dog is also broken down int a "Easy" meaning walk on a loose leash. "Heel" means a formal, by my side with strong eye focus. ALSO I will use a "With me" when walking in a large field or any place the dog can be off lead. This is more like a duck hunter wants. The dog can be at his side with not worrying about perfect placement or eye contact with the handler. Just stay with a few feet of me.
All sounds crazy huh?! Again this is what "I" do and the only thing I can say about it is that if you walk your dog a lot and constantly expect a perfect heel you can burn the dog out. Tomorrow I'll try get into some of the basic "house stuff" I expect from my dog.
There are probably a dozen good ways to train a dog. These are things "I" do with mine. If you use something different or just a part of what I say then stay with it if it works for you and your dog.

Bob, I use many of the same informal commands you do, for the same purpose. I'm working much more on informal/household/good manners types of behavior, as opposed to formal obedience at this time (though we are including a little practice on basic obedience work).

I, too, use "Easy" to encourage loose-leash walking, and I'm also starting him on "With me" to mean just stay close when he's off leash. "This way!" signals to him that I've just changed direction, in case he wasn't paying attention.

I'm hoping formal heeling might come somewhat easy for him. He's only been here for about two and a half weeks, but he's already decided to be my constant shadow as I move about the house.

Several of us old regulars here on the board have a new dog or dogs now. It will be fun hearing about everyone's progress!

Good training posts from Bob and Cheri!

I use a command that's different from "heel" for regular daily loose-lease walking, too. It's "Let's go."

"Free" means I will stand still, maybe at a good tree, and the dog can do whatever (to the end of the leash), like sniff around.



I wonder --- anyone have good ideas for how to end a play session or a game of fetch? I know I don't want to call the dog to me to end the fun ...

If it was just tossing a stick I would end with an OK and they understood the stick was theirs to do as they wished. I often had a treat with me to give after the last toss if the item wasn't disposable.

For actual training I never had an issue keeping the training article be it a Kong for SAR or a bite tug for most everything else. When I was herding with Thunder I would work him with the tug and that seemed to give me quicker response when he was working sheep. No idea why.

With Quincy I play fetch in the house as does the wife. I know, I know! It goes against everything I've preached but I was in sitting down a lot after my surgery. Never knew I would be snuggling with a puppy or talking like a baby. Dern Poodle is ruining my whole image.

One thing I've learned in the past yrs is that when working on a new behavior I stick with only that behavior until its solid. I use to work on 2-3 behaviors at a time. Most of my dogs "got it" but this one behavior at a time seems to go faster in their learning.

Below zero last week and it was in the 60s today. Lots of sit training of and on outside.

Quincy has a nice sit and sit stay but I found today, working OB in the front yard created many distractions and quite different from working in the familiar back yard. In the back yard hearing a dog outside can be pretty much ignored but seeing someone walking their dog was a bit much so I will work the sit and sit stay like it was brand new. I would be unwise to ruin what he knows well without the extra distractions. Wife and I did a few recalls back and fourth in the front and he did excellent With those with dragging a long line.

My uses for the sit stay
Going in and out of the house, going up and down the basement steps, in and out of the yard gate and sitting for his meals. All familiar to him and getting the sit stay solid. When it comes to competition I will add much more distractions, distance and duration to all the behaviors he will learn.
Quincy has not made a potty mistake in the house since he was about 12 wks old. I can only say that just means being CONSISTENT IN ANY PART OF THE TRAINING! If you cant keep and eye on the puppy either crate it or tether it to you. Wife, as usual with house training a new puppy was a huge help with this. Quincy is the first puppy in the house for almost 13 yrs.
When walking at the park yesterday we had many dogs raising hell. 1/2 mile walking path has many houses with dogs along it and that was his first exposure to so many dogs. Worked just the quick sits, mark and reward. No effort or reason to add distance or duration with all the distractions at this early point.