Quote: Mike Arnold

Yup, a good truck dog.

And essential to my assessment of a good truck dog is its conditioning to stay in the truck or the bed of the truck until released.

Which is essentially the same as a good down, stay when I want to talk to the neighbor, with the dog either close or apart from me, and in a condition of distraction.

Training is all the time. Some time is more organized, and other times are more in the moment and even conversational. But it is all the time in one way or another.

Yup, a good truck dog.

Mike, if you didn't mean they should sit or down calmly when chained in the back of a pick-up , which I've never tried, we don't have one. In our I can say they are good truck dogs. unless a very strong distraction turns up. But I didn't need to train them for this. I had to do the contrary. After the first car-ride, they entered it without asking me first for allowance. I had to teach them to wait and only enter on command.

Teaching the Pits not to leave their bed and remain quite is still difficult. It works only with two people, my husband and our yardkeeper. With unknown or even more people it is hopeless. I need to chain them and after a while they calm down.

"Training is all the time". Well said, but easier said than done. When we have visitors, I have to serve them and also want to talk with them and not being non-stop concentrated on the dogs. They know the "talk!" and "quiet!" and they shut up immediately on command , but - oh weia - not for a long time.

I can of course put them ineir kennels, then they are quiet, but this would mean also they don't get used to people.