Done with basic training...now what?

[Kujo]

Help! Kujo has all the basics down and I want to teach him something new...but I can't think of anything! He can do all of the following: come, sit, stay, lay down, shake, high five, sit up, speak, little speak, and leave it. I want to teach him the army crawl, but we have hardwood floors so that will have to wait. I am being patient with our heel training, I think that as he matures he will be able to focus on this more.
We go over everything he knows at least once a day, and I think he's getting bored (even though I get silly excited and try to make it fun), I want to spice things up and make it fun again. And I know (based on some threads on here) that once he hits 8 months that he'll probably hit a stubborn streak and training wont be as simple.

Any other fun tricks he can learn, or something basic that I missed? I want to get as much in that head of his before we hit the stubborn streak.

 

[Ben Curtis]

"find it" is Leo's favorite game. I started out doing it with a prize. Now we do it with a named prize. I say "find your rope" and he will go get it out of his toy box. Then I will have him sit and stay, and I will hide the rope and tell him "find it," and he will run off and try and find it. Leo is only about 19 weeks, so when I say hiding it, it is nothing hard at all, but he loves it. After about a month we will name another toy. Probably his kong bone. So it will be "find your Kong." The goal in the end is for him to be able to understand the names of his different toys.

 

[Geisthexe]

When I read your post from a trainer point of view
You are giving up on heeling
You never taught the focus
You never trained thru distractions
You never trained long distance commands
You never trained off leash

Did that help ya out with more stuff to do??

Happy training!


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[ruthcatrin]

Do you have a club by you that teaches Rally?

I'd also suggest "touch". You teach the dog that on the "touch" command he is to touch his nose or paw (or both depending on how you word the command) to the item you identify. Its great for introducing new items to the dog that might be scary or intimidating.

Also Geisthexe's suggestion: proof all those commands from a distance, both on leash and off leash.

 

[VentiandMe]

Roll over is pretty easy...we taught our BT to do it in only a few days of training. On the sit/stays or down/stays...have you practiced that at an increasing distance or maybe even if you leave the area/room? We do that in our training class. Have you taught him to come to you after leaving him in the sit/stay? That's a must IMO. Use a 30ft leash to practice those. Also what about the stand command? Its basically putting him in a standing pose and setting him up to look a certain way...maybe not a big deal if you are not showing him but its hard command for them to learn.

"touch" seems like a cool command! how do you get the dog to touch the nose though?? put his head to it or bring the item to his nose and say the command?

 

[Duetsche_Doggen]

I taught Stone "play dead" or "bang" LOL My dogs are larger than most here but I teach them to "back up" as well. Comes in handy in tight areas.

I also agree with Deb about the off leash training and the focus.

 

[Ben Curtis]

I am wondering about touch also. I think having them touch a paw to something would not be too hard, but getting them to touch there nose to something at first I can't wrap my brain around. Would love to hear more also on that one.

 

[VentiandMe]

"find it" is Leo's favorite game. I started out doing it with a prize. Now we do it with a named prize. I say "find your rope" and he will go get it out of his toy box. Then I will have him sit and stay, and I will hide the rope and tell him "find it," and he will run off and try and find it. Leo is only about 19 weeks, so when I say hiding it, it is nothing hard at all, but he loves it. After about a month we will name another toy. Probably his kong bone. So it will be "find your Kong." The goal in the end is for him to be able to understand the names of his different toys.

I want to do this! Can you explain the steps of setting this up a little more?

 

[Duetsche_Doggen]

I want to do this! Can you explain the steps of setting this up a little more?

If you dog knows what the object is your halfway there. Thor knows the difference between the his football and his stuffie ( stuffed toy) I just say "find _______" and he does.

 

[Ben Curtis]

With a prize:
I started off having them sit and stay. I then put the prize in front of his face and say "smell." He knows not to take it unless I say "take it." I then walk a few feet away and pretend to hide it in 3 spots (so he can see me doing it) and then walk back to him. I wait a few seconds, and then say "find it." I also like to point to the actual location. I have found this useful when I actually want him to get a Frisbee across the yard or something. He learns to look at me for direction on where to go. If he does not find it after a few minutes, or gets off track, I will help by pointing to the area of the prize, and give him big lovin when he finds it. From there you just get more and more complex. My previous dog I would hide prizes under frisbees. Changing levels makes it challenging. For instance putting it on a night stand. They get used to smelling on the ground and not looking up too.
With a toy:
I basically do the same thing as above. I start with the toy I want to name. Very helpful if it is his favorite toy to start. I then say sit, stay, and smell. I then do exactly as above. After he seems to understand the name I will start hiding it with his other toys, and only reward him with a prize when he brings me the right one. After about a month of that name, I will switch it up with another toy. Do the same process, and then mix up what toy I am asking for.

From what I understand it is very mentally stimulating for the dog. He is using scent, sight, and verbal commands all together. I do find it wears Leo out mentally rather quickly.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Teaching touch:

Here's two slightly different variations on it (as well as some suggestions on where to go with it):

http://www.thatmutt.com/2009/05/14/teach-your-dog-the-touch-command/
http://www.raisingspot.com/training/clicker-target-exercise

 

[Kujo]

When I read your post from a trainer point of view
You are giving up on heeling
You never taught the focus
You never trained thru distractions
You never trained long distance commands
You never trained off leash

Did that help ya out with more stuff to do??

Happy training!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks! I was told that teaching heel at a young age is mostly pointless because of their attention span, are you saying (from a trainers point of view) tha

 

[Geisthexe]

Thanks! I was told that teaching heel at a young age is mostly pointless because of their attention span, are you saying (from a trainers point of view) tha

No I'm saying you should be training it.. The first thing you should have taught was focus then moved it to heeling.
All my pups walk on a leash nicely with a good focus on me ..
Heeling is very important
What I was saying to you is it sounds like you have up on heeling ..
There is a couple videos on posted on focus for another member on here, search my name and you'll find them


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[ruthcatrin]

My personal POV, if you want to him heel as an adult you should start training it at a young age. Which doesn't mean that you expect perfection by 6 months, but if you want it as an adult starting the foundation of it as a pup puts you ahead of the game.

 

[Kujo]

that its not pointless?

and "the focus", does this mean teaching him to focus on me, basically just look at me?
I've been doing all our training sessions off leash...mostly inside cause it's been freezing.

Thanks for the advice, I guess I should be solidifying his training in different scenarios rather than trying new things. Back to school I go

 

[Ben Curtis]

Teaching touch:

Here's two slightly different variations on it (as well as some suggestions on where to go with it):

http://www.thatmutt.com/2009/05/14/teach-your-dog-the-touch-command/
http://www.raisingspot.com/training/clicker-target-exercise

Thanks for the links, will start this tonight.

 

[Geisthexe]

that its not pointless?

and "the focus", does this mean teaching him to focus on me, basically just look at me?
I've been doing all our training sessions off leash...mostly inside cause it's been freezing.
Thanks for the advice, I guess I should be solidifying his training in different scenarios rather than trying new things. Back to school I go

Read this post and your will see what I am talking about on focus
http://www.mastiff-forum.com/showthread.php/7846-Motivation-and-Focused-Heeling

Also hun you are doing yourself a mistraining skill by training all off leash. All this tells me is your dog is NOT trained. I understand it is cold but you can go places to train your dog. At this point if you went to PetSmart to go work your dog he/she will just completely ignore you b/c it has 1st never was trained with a leash 2nd your dog doesnt understand distraction 3rd your dog will not know the commands the way you need to positive and correcting that you get with the leash.
My suggestion is go back to basic 101 and train all with the leash ..

Happy training!

Deb V

 

[ruthcatrin]

Thanks for the advice, I guess I should be solidifying his training in different scenarios rather than trying new things. Back to school I go

Add in the new stuff too, or it'll get boring, for you if not for him. As long as each session isn't overly long there's no reason why you can't do both new and old. Especially since he's got the basics of the old already down pat.

---------- Post added at 03:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 PM ----------

Also hun you are doing yourself a mistraining skill by training all off leash. All this tells me is your dog is NOT trained. I understand it is cold but you can go places to train your dog. At this point if you went to PetSmart to go work your dog he/she will just completely ignore you b/c it has 1st never was trained with a leash 2nd your dog doesnt understand distraction 3rd your dog will not know the commands the way you need to positive and correcting that you get with the leash.
My suggestion is go back to basic 101 and train all with the leash ..

Yah, dogs don't generalize well. Just cause that word means thus at home, off leash, doesn't mean that it STILL means thus when he's ON leash at the store, or down the road, or.....next time you take him out for exercise on leash run through the commands you think he knows so well and see how he does. If he's spot on then you have less to worry about (which doesn't mean don't practice them everywhere, practice practice practice!), but I suspect he won't be.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Also hun you are doing yourself a mistraining skill by training all off leash. All this tells me is your dog is NOT trained. I understand it is cold but you can go places to train your dog. At this point if you went to PetSmart to go work your dog he/she will just completely ignore you b/c it has 1st never was trained with a leash 2nd your dog doesnt understand distraction 3rd your dog will not know the commands the way you need to positive and correcting that you get with the leash.
My suggestion is go back to basic 101 and train all with the leash ..

Yah, dogs don't generalize well. Just cause that word means thus at home, off leash, doesn't mean that it STILL means thus when he's ON leash at the store, or down the road, or.....next time you take him out for exercise on leash run through the commands you think he knows so well and see how he does. If he's spot on then you have less to worry about (which doesn't mean don't practice them everywhere, practice practice practice!), but I suspect he won't be.

 

[Kujo]

next question: We switched Kujo to a harness because he would get a terrible cough from a normal leash, within a couple days of making the switch, his cough has vanished. Will training with a harness rather than a leash make a difference?