Adventures Outdoors'

In Wisconsin

Obedience is the foundation for all of your future training, and if you do nothing else please obedience train your dog. To many people obtain dogs with good intentions to train the dog, but laziness takes over and they end up with a wild dog that wont come when its called, chews up the house, digs up the yard, so on and so on. If they just had spent 10 minutes a day with the dog in a productive obedience program everyone (including their neighbors) would be much happier.

Notes on obedience or a charted log should be kept on the progress of your training. All obedience sessions should be relatively short lasting 15 or 20 minutes. They should be done at least once a day but twice a day would be better. A couple of days missed isn’t cause for alarm, but it should be noted, it might take you a step back. Dogs don’t learn anything sitting in a kennel all day and are looking forward to spending this time with you. Maintain a good attitude in the pup by spending this training time with them as much as possible.

Sit is the first real command we teach are dogs. A dog is probably told to sit thousands of times more then any other command in their lifetime. We begin teaching the dog sit in the house shortly after the pup is brought home. We teach the young pup this by simply holding his chest and gently pushing down on his rump while saying, "sit". We give the pup a small treat and lots of praise when he sits and soon he is glad to perform this new trick for you. But now as we begin obedience training, at 15 or 16 weeks we put a choke collar on him, along with a dummy e-collar on (if your planning on using an e-collar), along with a lead, and now we are demanding the sit command. Your now going to pull slightly up on the lead making the collar tight and give the command "sit". Refusals will be dealt with by pushing the rump down physically saying, "sit". After a few sessions of this the dog should respond well. You are going to teach side sits, front sit, and remote sit.

Front sit is the first sit your going to teach. Sit the dog facing you. Side sit is when the dog is sitting next to you facing the same direction your looking while slightly touching your leg. Usually a side sit is taught with the dog on your left side and later taught on your right side so the dog knows how to sit on both sides of you. Remote sit will be taught later during the stay/here command drill. After the dog is doing this reasonably well we are going to move on to heel.

I personally don’t make it a habit to have a lead on a dog until I’m doing obedience unless it’s a safety issue. For example if you think the pup will run off into a road or other hazard you certainly should restrain him. I don’t want the pup getting used to the pulling of the lead, and I don’t want any confusion when I start heeling the pup. Pups that have had leads on are almost trained to pull, and are more difficult to heel train. The reason is their just confused, thinking, well I have always pulled, and now he is telling me I can’t. They seem to catch on quickly if all of a sudden this lead is put on and right away their taught they can’t pull.

When you first put a lead on the dog they may put up quite a struggle, just try to control the situation by telling the dog "sit", giving him treats often, and keeping the first session to about 5 minutes. Start him in the sit position on your left side and tell him "heel", give him a little tug on the leash saying "heel", walk a little forward and again and stop, tell him "sit". The next session should be easier and taking a treat in your hand, begin walking the pup while holding the treat out in front of your knee. After a little walking give the pup the treat tell him "sit". Then begin again walking saying "heel, heel" several times. If the pup lags behind give him a tug while holding the treat out, when he catches up say "good, good" "heel, heel" then give him the treat. Make him sit and do this again and again. If he pulls forward you must give a sharp snap with the lead slightly pulling him back saying, "heel heel". You may again have to hold a treat behind you to put him in the proper position. When you make him sit, do not give him a treat.

You start out with the treats and then sort of wean them off the treats replacing them with a retrieve (a fun bumper) as the reward. He knows sit and must now be taught this isn’t a request but a demand. After a couple of sessions on heel the sit must now be enforced. A refusal to sit should be dealt with by whacking the rump with a healing stick or whip then pushing the rump down saying, "sit". After the pup is sitting, then lots of praise is given. We aren’t teaching sit, we are teaching heel, so don’t turn the heeling drills into sitting drills. We are refreshing the sit command, so as soon as they’re heeling fairly well; walk them for a long ways before you give them a sit command. Keep the pup’s head in line with your legs while walking. If he is to far forward he really doesn’t know where you are. You may want to bring a whip or plastic kids baseball bat along and give him a tap on the chest if he gets to far forward of your knee. Keep a high standard on this. I see many dogs that aren’t properly trained on heel. This command is probably the most neglected of all obedience commands. Timing is very important in the heeling process. A sharp snap with the lead while saying heel at the right moment along with praise makes the process goes much quicker.

After about 10 sessions you want to begin sitting the dog a little more often, say every 50 yards or so and making him sit for longer periods of time while telling him "stay, stay". Also this is a good time to start blowing the whistle with a single blast while also saying sit. Were teaching the dog to sit on a single blast "toooot" of the whistle. Later when teaching the dog blinds the dog will already understand the sit whistle. After a few times, the whistle will replace the command "sit".

A lot of trainers don’t believe in the teaching of the word "stay". They think the "sit" command should tell the dog not to move until released. As a hunter I think it’s an important command by itself as well as a reassuring cue during sit. The dogs can certainly handle this extra word. There are times when I’m hunting, say in flooded timber or juicy mud when I don’t really want the dog to sit but I want him to stay. I don’t think the dog is confused by it, and it gives you an extra meaningful cue to enforce the command.

Make the dog sit and stay for longer periods say up to a minute and when you release him your going to say "here, here" (or "come, come"), I use here. I like to make them front sit (sit facing me) when they come to me, that is a seed we are planting in the dogs head for later handling drills. After they sit facing me I tell them heel and guide them to my left side for a side sit. Later we will teach a right side sit also, along with right sided heeling. Here and heel sound alike at a distance and when the dog is out at a distance they mean the same thing. But when the dog is next to you "here" means get on my leg or turn right, and "heel" means adjust yourself left (when heeling on left leg) or walk with me. We will discuss this later when we talk about line manners and positioning the dog.

A great drill for this type of precision moving on the line is the "wagon wheel", which we will discuss later in our handling section.

Now you’re going to heel for 50 yards then sit, then stay, and then slowly take a step back saying "stay, stay". If the pup comes without you telling him, say "no, no", put him back in the same spot he left from saying, "stay stay". If he continues then move closer and try again. These are small seeds were planting for later enforced stay training. Its not important do get them to stay at a distance now, we will teach this later with a rope wrapped around a tree and on a u-bolt on a platform. After about 20 sessions your dog should be left sided heeling, sitting, and staying up to a minute fairly well.

After our short walks with heel as the main focus and refreshers in sit, stay and here (come). We are ready to begin platform training for stay and here (come). Later we will alternate from the platform to the ground in front of a tree to restrain the pup with a rope. The reason we get the dog used to the platform is because we are going to want the dog comfortable on this platform while force training (teaching the dog to hold and fetch). If you feel you are having a lot of trouble on the platform you can also start stay on the ground with the rope around a tree as restraint, but try and do the platform before you force fetch so the dog is used to the platform. Believe me your force fetch drills will be much easier.

During our walks we are still stopping now and then teaching sit, stay, and here (come), we are going to enforce the stay command at fairly close range. We are going to stop say "sit", "stay", and while holding up on the rope so it is tight, move slowly away from the dog repeating "stay" slowly getting farther and farther away. Lightly pulling on the rope. If the dog starts to come without being told we will say "no, no", put him back to where he was and repeat the procedure. When we call him we will say "here, here". When the dog comes to you have him sit and reward him with a treat telling him "good, "good". Gradually we will drop the leash and increase the distance daily; soon he will be staying up to a hundred yards away and coming to you quickly for his reward.

Then I like to heel him to a big field. When we get to the field I will have him sit and stay, and I will walk a hundred yards or so away, call him to me and when he gets there I will throw him a fun bumper. Kind of replacing the treats with a retrieve as the reward for staying. Continue with the walks, teaching sit, heel, stay, and come until he is doing it every time.

Switch over to right sided heeling, and sitting on your right. This shouldn’t be a big deal. Its useful hunting, as well as field trials, and hunt tests. If you consistently sit him and heel him on the left, he will feel uncomfortable when the time comes when you have to heel him on the right. Remember that all the repetition you have done has been on the left side. You may be a little spoiled by the fact he has been doing all these commands perfectly. Be patient and take your time not losing your temper. It will take several sessions before he will be able to decipher the right and left positions. Simply hold your arm straight out to the right when you want him on your right, guiding him with the leash and sitting him on the right. Have him stay and again guide him to the left holding your arm to the left. Always repeat the same commands (sit, and heel) while directing him with your arm stretched out on the side you want him on. Alternate between left and right several times a session. Continue alternating between both sides and all commands until he is doing them nearly perfect.

I have always felt that if you think the dog is doing all the commands great, then do it another two weeks.

It can be useful to teach the dog to lie down. I personally wait to teach this command after the dog has completed his handling drills and is well into blinds (birds a dog doesn’t see fall and is sent using hand signals to retrieve the bird). The dog can become confused during handling training, and you could run into problems while teaching him the remote sit (when the dog sits away from you in the field while running a blind). If you teach the dog to lay down before teaching blinds be aware that you may or may not have some extra work ahead of you.

The procedure is quite simple. You simply say, "lay down" while stepping on his leash bringing his front end down to the ground. Then push down on his rump still repeating the command "lay down". When you finally get him down you can pet him telling him "good, good", and give him a treat. Several times of this in 5-minute sessions a couple times a day will normally get the job done. After a few sessions you can start moving away from him slowly telling him "stay, stay". When you can move away out to 50 yards and if he doesn’t get up, your pretty much done and a refresher now and then should be sufficient to keep him tuned up. It’s a very useful command to use while goose hunting in a field, duck hunting in light cover, or controlling him in the house when you have guests. With some dogs it can be quite a wrestling match. Keep with it and you will prevail.

Always remember to throw fun bumpers during and at the end of all sessions to keep things fun, along with keeping a good attitude in the dog.

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