The importance of commands.

fatmammycat

It's warm at the moment, so where I walk has plenty of water areas- rivers and lakes and so on. This morning I and a friend and our two dogs were entering the parkland where we train and exercise every morning when we met, or rather saw, a woman with a lovely, but HYPER labradoodle that was bouncing all around an older collie who was standing in the water. The owner of the collie was shaking her head and the labradoodle owner was calling and calling and calling her dog. To no avail.
We pressed on- our dogs were on leads- and yep, here comes the labradoodle at full sprint straight for us, owner still calling- but now her calls are frustrated and angry. My own dog is fairly chilled, but my friend's dog is a slightly reactive rescue and does NOT like dogs up in his face. In response to this labradoodle approaching, he dropped like stone and was not at all happy.
I said 'Let's try keep moving' -dogs on leads can feel very trapped and anxious when approached this way.
But her dog was like a rock on the ground. Then...
Bang.
Labradoodle jumps her dog and gets nailed pretty swifly. It yelped and leaped out, THEN comes dancing around like a loo-lah into my own dog, who chilled and all as he is, also does not approve of dogs jumping all over him while he is on leash.
In the meantime the owner, tired of wasting her breath comes over to catch her dog, resulting in absolute chaos as her dog evades capture and thinks this is great fun.
At this point my friend managed to get her dog moving again after my own and we went into the fields quick smart to take the pressure out of the situation.
The long winded conversation we had afterwards, was about the importance of commands. I read somewhere once, and it stuck with me, that being off lead is a privilege and not a right. I've mentioned on here before that I'm getting a little tired of off lead dogs with owners a mile away, unable to recall their dogs. To me, recall would be the number command and should be set in stone. And that means recall, not when the dog feels like it. Constantly calling your dog's name -like this morning teaches the dog nothing except it can blow you off.
For my friend, 'Leave it' is her number 1 commands as her dog has a habit of eating things he shouldn't when out walking and it's been a bit of a chore for her trying to break this particular habit, but he's really improved lately.

I mentioned the other day that 'go wide' has made my life and the life of my own dog SO much easier when walking any kind of trail. People see me coming and I can tell if they are nervous or if their dog might be a little anxious to meet a GSD full on. So I tell him 'go wide' and he immediately hops off the trail. It remarkable how people relax almost at once when they can see your dogs is following a simple command and I am beginning to enjoy the thankful praise we get. Really simple to teach too, so for me, that would be my number 2 command.
The third and I wish more people taught this, is a simple 'stay'. Just stay. I don't care if he's sitting or standing as long as he's not moving from where I want him to be. This has saved me COUNTLESS nuiscance problems, both major and minor, and again other people appreciate it too.
We, all of us who love and enjoy our dogs, owe it to everyone and ourselves to train basic commands and use them. If the lady this morning had trained and solidified recall, she would not have been so stressed and neither would my friend or her dog (nor the collie owner so irked).
So I as wondering, what other commands do you think are a must for a happy co-relationship with society in general?

VonVix

I witnessed something similar with a man and his rottweiler, yet the command he gave was "stay close" rather than go wide haha!

But yeah, I was actually very impressed to see this. First time I have ever seen someone at my local park give a command to their dog to do something other than tugging on the leash and yelling "no!" at their dog when they want to come over to mine.

I have a similar command with my dog, I tell him "on me" and he trots close to me with his eyes up looking at me. Never had any real reason to have this command it's just something that trained him to do by capturing the behaviour.

fatmammycat

That's cute. My neighbour has a female boxer that has the best loose heeling I've ever seen on a dog. He says 'let's walk' and she slots right by his side.

Whispered

God if an offlead dog like that ran at Harley there would be a scuffle. Guaranteed. He was hopped on a while back by a dog when he was on the lead an since he will not tolerate a dog approaching him when he's attached to his lead.

My number one after recall is a wait. Both my fellas can be rude when excited. Wait means "put your ass on the floor and await further instruction". I also use "look" a lot, mainly to get attention from them and it will usually be followed up by another cue or else praise if I was using it to distract them from something wonderful like a cat or duck.

Hooked

We own two Huskys.

... What is all this talk of off lead behaviour??? Heel? Wait? Stay?

Pretzill

Wait is a good one for me on or off lead - but my best recall is my dogs toy name - and bring it to me (in my happiest voice) she's a bc and totally focussed on games but mad as a march hare if a particular equally nutty dog walks by the gates or horses go by - toy name has her at my side in seconds (and then we have to play again!)

also when on lead I do have to use 'leave it!' and ignore and keep walking passed the dogs who are always left off lead without owner about on the road

fatmammycat

Whispered wrote: »

God if an offlead dog like that ran at Harley there would be a scuffle. Guaranteed. He was hopped on a while back by a dog when he was on the lead an since he will not tolerate a dog approaching him when he's attached to his lead.

My number one after recall is a wait. Both my fellas can be rude when excited. Wait means "put your ass on the floor and await further instruction". I also use "look" a lot, mainly to get attention from them and it will usually be followed up by another cue or else praise if I was using it to distract them from something wonderful like a cat or duck.

I know, my dog can be the same- no tolerance for bad manners. But my friend's dog is actually a bit scared of approaching dogs when leashed. This thing is, there was no maliciousness in the labradoodle, just sheer dizzy energy.
Wait is a good too, I use that a lot when we're training.

minipink

I do 'swap you ' as a command similar to leave it with a treat given in exchange to leave it it's a great command but Lola has reversed roles and brings a swap offer when I have something she wants. I like the go wide idea, she's quite timid so can't be off lead much as she's terrified of banging (hammering )noises and takes off running in fear but loves other dogs so I might try it when there's a hyper one coming our way. I see a lot of dogs who have been trained to lie down when a dog is passing .

tk123

How to do teach go wide?

fatmammycat

tk123 wrote: »

How to do teach go wide?

Sure, I can try.
My dog likes to chase things thrown (and bring them back), this and 'finding' things hidden are his favourite games. So: To teach 'go wide', I started with the command, and then performed a sort of skippy jump that idicated I was about to throw something; as soon as he moved out a stride or two in anticipation of the throw I rewarded this movement with the actual throw. If he didn't move, I didn't throw.
In no time at all, ' go wide' had him moving out away from me to the right or left, waiting for the throw - which in the early days I did all the time. Once he had it down perfectly, I started to train him to come 'centre' which meant come back to me, and THEN I'd throw it. This way, he learned that it might not always be on the away movement that he got what he wanted.
I then started to do it with dogs approaching in the distance (body language is so important, dogs coming face to face often become tense, but dogs watching my guy race outfield sometimes run after him, and there is never the same tension- plus my dog routinely ignores dogs chasing him)- I'd give the command and throw way way out and of course he'd race after it, allowing dogs and owners to pass in peace and quiet, and also allowing my own dog to see/ sometimes interact with another dog and not consider it anything worth getting troubled about since the awesome game was afoot. After a while I'd throw only a short distance, then maybe not at all, only say the words 'go wide' and off he'd go. Training this way meant my slightly reactive pup ( we're talking around 10 months here) became totally oblivious to directly approaching dogs and it gave me a huge amount of control without having to drag him or pull him or indeed touch him at all.
I find with my own dog everything taught through games sticks with him more than any other kind of training and it was less stressful overall for both of us. It's a bit like building drive in a dog, once you find out what it is the dog is happy to work for, you can use this to curb unwanted behaviour and teach what is it you expect from your dog ( in my case pleasant, hassle free walks for EVERYONE).
I might not have explained this properly, but I hope it makes a kind of sense

tk123

Thanks that does make sense I'll try this with my too - they already back up like that when they're waiting for me to throw stuff so I'll start adding the command