What commands does your dog need to know?

[Liz CA]

I am thinking that 4-5 commands suffice for the laid back dog life we have here. Am I missing something vital because this is my opportunity to teach boxer girl some new tricks?

We do not show the dog, don't participate in any dog sports but we need a dog obedient in basics.

 

We are working on

 

1. Come (Recall)

2. Sit

3. Down

4. Stay

5. Stop

Ambivalent if we need to practice "heel" since she walks very nicely on leash but we have not tried walking in the yard without a leash and definitely not outside the yard.

 

Lilly came with almost no skills but since she is a pleaser and very friendly I am not as diligent as I should be. I've had her for a week almost and we are working every day several times for a few minutes. With my Cane Corso, I worked very diligently because people were afraid of him due to his size and the fierce look and he was a little dominant at first so I had to establish the "pecking order." He was a quick learner and mastered all of the above (except we never practiced "stop").

 

I have not really enforced "stop" before even though an old dog training book suggested. It is supposed to stop the dog while walking/running. Could be beneficial.

[Pawz4me]

I think that's a pretty good list.

 

I love the stop (or wait) command, which for me means freeze in your tracks and don't move a muscle until I release you.  IMO it is the command that's most likely to be a life saver.

 

I'd add "leave" it to your list -- as in don't pick up whatever you're thinking about picking up, or spit it out if it's already in your mouth.  It's also a potentially life saving command.

 

Most people don't need their dogs to know a formal heel unless they walk in crowded areas.  IME what most people want from their dogs is keeping a loose leash/not pulling.

[ajfries]

We use "down" and "off" differently. "Down" means lay down & stay there until I release you (we're still working on the stay there). "Off" means get your feet off. Off of me, off of the couch, off of the table.

[ScoutTN]

I like that leave it command. I used drop it with my previous three dogs, all of whom LOVED to retreive, but the preventative aspect could be so helpful.

[The Girls' Mom]

"Quiet"

[scoutingmom]

I agree with the leave-it. I taught my dog 'vacuum ' which meant 'eat what I point to'.... came in handy!

[kroe1]

Mine knows these that we use frequently for our and her benefit:

 

1. Heel

2. Wait

3. Left

4. Right

5. Mush (go fast)

6. Easy (slow down)

7. Fetch the ball (or bone or rope)

8. No

9. Sit

10. Shake

11. Rollover (which she can only half do)

12. Take it to Mommy's room (puts socks away in my closet)

13. Where's the ball (bone or rope) when we hide stuff for her to find.

14. Come

15. Treat

16. Give me that.

 

She rings bells when she needs to go potty.

[Joules]

I agree with the leave-it. I taught my dog 'vacuum ' which meant 'eat what I point to'.... came in handy!

That's "clean-up" in this house. I can call "clean-up" and they come running. (Of course, I only use it for dog-friendly foods.)

 

For new dog owners: One huge thing I would do different with another is to have a release word that is very uncommon. Our first training class used "OK.". Apparently we use it constantly.

Me (from the door as dh's leaving) Don't forget to pick up ds.

Dh: OK (cue dog off stay and he joins dh in car)

(With just one dog, at first, we weren't consistant enough with using names with commands.)

[unsinkable]

Crate.

 

He'll run in his crate.

[plansrme]

My 15 yo would add, "Get your butt off of my pillow."

 

 

[unsinkable]

My 15 yo would add, "Get your butt off of my pillow."

Also, "get out of my spot" and "excuse me."

 

:D

[Liz CA]

That's "clean-up" in this house. I can call "clean-up" and they come running. (Of course, I only use it for dog-friendly foods.)

 

For new dog owners: One huge thing I would do different with another is to have a release word that is very uncommon. Our first training class used "OK.". Apparently we use it constantly.

Me (from the door as dh's leaving) Don't forget to pick up ds.

Dh: OK (cue dog off stay and he joins dh in car)

(With just one dog, at first, we weren't consistant enough with using names with commands.)

 

Someone once suggested using something like "Free."

[Liz CA]

Someone once suggested using something like "Free" or "Release" which is too long for me. I still use "Okay" with a certain upbeat tone.

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I agree with Leave it

and Crate

 

also my dogs know "hurry up" which means go pee or poop.  Very handy if it is raining hard and you want them to go out and do their business already.

 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

And for one of our dogs only, "Go to your spot".  He has puppy ADHD and can become wild inside.   Being able to tell him that allows him to calm down in a room that doesn't have his crate in it.  

[KungFuPanda]

"Get out" for when you want the dog to leave the room. Mine tries to sneak into the studio during dance classes so students will pet him. It was easier to train the dog to leave the room on command than to train the students to ignore him. Keep in mind that I have a greyhound mix that's not the most trainable of creatures, so I have to say "get out" about every 30 minutes. He sneaks in, they pet him on the sly, and sometimes it takes me a minute to register he's there. It's a conspiracy.

 

"Get out" doesn't work if there's thunder :-/

[Lady Florida.]

I would add "do your business" or "go potty" or whatever phrase you like to make sure the dog knows it's not play time or sniff the yard time if you want him to go to the bathroom and be done with it. This is especially helpful if you travel and take the dog outside to go. We stay in pet friendly hotels and with all the new and interesting scents he needs to know why we took him out.

[kewb]

With our dog the list is:

Sit

Down

Stay

Off

Drop it

High five

Shake

Go potty

[Pawz4me]

That's "clean-up" in this house. I can call "clean-up" and they come running. (Of course, I only use it for dog-friendly foods.)

 

For new dog owners: One huge thing I would do different with another is to have a release word that is very uncommon. Our first training class used "OK.". Apparently we use it constantly.

Me (from the door as dh's leaving) Don't forget to pick up ds.

Dh: OK (cue dog off stay and he joins dh in car)

(With just one dog, at first, we weren't consistant enough with using names with commands.)

 

Oh, yes!  The first dog I ever trained I made the mistake of using "ok" as the release word.  I learned never to do that again!

[Spy Car]

I have not really enforced "stop" before even though an old dog training book suggested. It is supposed to stop the dog while walking/running. Could be beneficial.

I teach Woah! (Stop!) but it is something that even most advanced Obedience trainers don't teach their dogs. Mostly bird-dog people do, and I often don't like the methods.

 

In most cases a good recall will stand in for a Stop/Whoa. It is a lot earlier to teach.

 

Bill

[Jean in Newcastle]

I teach Woah! (Stop!) but it is something that even most advanced Obedience trainers don't teach their dogs. Mostly bird-dog people do, and I often don't like the methods.

 

In most cases a good recall will stand in for a Stop/Whoa. It is a lot earlier to teach.

 

Bill

A "sit" will stop my dogs immediately.  

[Alte Veste Academy]

Our most often used commands:

 

Come

Sit

Down

Stay

Give

Leave It

Wait

Bed

Out

Off

 

DH taught Paper for him to run out into the yard and fetch the morning paper.

 

I find that sit, stay, or come all work when you need a dog to stop, depending on the circumstances.

 

I had a supergenius yellow lab who knew Go Around. When she heard it, she knew to look up, find the obstacle, and stay between it and me so her leash would not get tangled. She almost never barked, so we also taught her Speak. She also knew Go Potty because we lived in an apartment with her and sometimes we just needed her to hurry. Our current dog has not needed this command, as he has always had a yard and it's not necessary to hurry on walks.

 

High-Five is fun. And shake, but High-Five seems to impress more people.

[DragonFaerie]

We used "go to your room" for sending him to his crate.

[Pawz4me]

I teach Woah! (Stop!) but it is something that even most advanced Obedience trainers don't teach their dogs. Mostly bird-dog people do, and I often don't like the methods.

 

In most cases a good recall will stand in for a Stop/Whoa. It is a lot earlier to teach.

 

Bill

 

I disagree.  My Brittany and the two Lab mixes I've had -- all learned "wait" (stop) much easier and much more quickly than they did a good recall.  That's why I love it so much -- IME it's much easier to get a dog to be reliable with a stop/wait command, while they have more of a tendency to blow off a recall.  If they're doing something hugely interesting telling them to stop/wait isn't calling them away from the interesting thing, just pausing their pursuit of it.  Whereas a recall pulls them away from it.  So overall I've found dogs much more willing to do a stop/wait when (for example) an unleashed dog sees something interesting in the distance that he wants to go after.

 

But all my dogs were trained during the course of day-to-day living.  They were pets and house dogs, so much different than field training a dog.

 

And all of the obedience trainers I know teach wait/stop in advanced classes.  Maybe that's a regional thing?

[IsabelC]

I am thinking that 4-5 commands suffice for the laid back dog life we have here. Am I missing something vital because this is my opportunity to teach boxer girl some new tricks?

We do not show the dog, don't participate in any dog sports but we need a dog obedient in basics.

 

We are working on

 

1. Come (Recall)

2. Sit

3. Down

4. Stay

5. Stop

Ambivalent if we need to practice "heel" since she walks very nicely on leash but we have not tried walking in the yard without a leash and definitely not outside the yard.

 

 

Our dog is only 10 months old so we're still teaching him. So far the main things we have worked on are:

"Sit" and "sit/stay" (when we feed him he has to sit/stay and not start eating until we give him "OK")

"Down" to lie down on the floor

"Come"

"Look" (he has to make eye contact and focus on the person - this is used to bring his attention back from any distractions during training)

"Touch" (this is when you hold out a hand and he has to 'spot' it with his nose, or otherwise touch with no use of teeth - we taught him this to counteract his tendency to grab everything in his teeth, including us)

"Leave it" (to redirect him away from things that are dangerous to chew on)

"Bed" (put himself in his crate"

"Need to go" (tells him to go potty before we crate him)

"On your mat"

"Where's your bone" (means stop trying to chew dd's violin or whatever, and find the bone, and settle down lol)

Oh and dh uses the command "Untangle" to tell the dog to go back around if he's walked on the wrong side of a pole or something while on leash.

He also knows "fetch" and "drop it" (for playing ball, obviously :) )

If you say "Where's the treats?" he will run and sit next to the place where his treat box is lol

And he knows "heel" but we don't do the strict heel where the dog has to have his head sort of glued to your knee, he just has to be walking on the left and close enough to keep a loose leash.

 

Wow - I had no idea how many words he knows until I started listing them. (Although, KNOWS is the operative word here; I reckon the "sit" and "stay" would be the only ones we get close to 100% compliance with.)

 

[Serenade]

What a great thread.  We just got a new puppy, and I'm bookmarking this. 

[Spy Car]

I disagree.  My Brittany and the two Lab mixes I've had -- all learned "wait" (stop) much easier and much more quickly than they did a good recall.  That's why I love it so much -- IME it's much easier to get a dog to be reliable with a stop/wait command, while they have more of a tendency to blow off a recall.  If they're doing something hugely interesting telling them to stop/wait isn't calling them away from the interesting thing, just pausing their pursuit of it.  Whereas a recall pulls them away from it.  So overall I've found dogs much more willing to do a stop/wait when (for example) an unleashed dog sees something interesting in the distance that he wants to go after.

 

But all my dogs were trained during the course of day-to-day living.  They were pets and house dogs, so much different than field training a dog.

 

And all of the obedience trainers I know teach wait/stop in advanced classes.  Maybe that's a regional thing?

 

When talking about "Whoa/Stop" I'm including putting a dog with a strong prey drive who is in hot pursuit of an object of desire at a full run heading away from its owner into an immediate fill stop with 100% reliability.

 

I teach this. I think it can be life saving, but it is not easy behavior for most casual dog owners to train IMO. 

 

Some (many) Obedience trainers here will put a dog into a Stay at a mild distance, Recall the dog to them, and then do a "Stop" (and some teach Down! as an alternative) as the dog is coming in. But this is quite a bit different than a Whoa! command to freeze a dog in hot pursuit of game (or some other high-value target) at a distance in the field (which is more advanced training goal by many orders of magnitude). 

 

Bill

[DragonFaerie]

I think dogs learn a lot of words and phrases that we don't realize.  I used to have several dogs, and sometimes getting them all to come in the house at night was a challenge.  I got exasperated one night when my Husky puppy wouldn't come in, so I told my German Shepherd "go get your sister."  He actually ran back out into the yard and herded her into the house!  It was hysterical.

[ScoutTN]

I agree with Leave it

and Crate

 

also my dogs know "hurry up" which means go pee or poop. Very handy if it is raining hard and you want them to go out and do their business already.

Yes. We have used "gotta go" and it has worked well to get our dogs refocused on the task at hand and not just meandering around, smelling everything. Very easy to train pups to this kind of command.

[KungFuPanda]

Yes. We have used "gotta go" and it has worked well to get our dogs refocused on the task at hand and not just meandering around, smelling everything. Very easy to train pups to this kind of command.

You guys are classier than us. We just say "go pee." We didn't think that on through.