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You know your dog, and you remember, of course!, that it’s the student who defines what is reinforcing, not the teacher. When I think to consciously say the same in a still quiet, but lower voice, she flips around like a gymnast. When I call Maggie away from the sheep she doesn’t flick an ear if I say “That’ll Do” in my usual high, squeaky voice (sigh). Working sheepdogs teaches you that the pitch of your voice has a huge impact on your dog.
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Last word on the cue–use a low, strong voice. Take a tip from sheepdog handlers, and use just one word so you can get it out fast. Define it however you want, but be clear about what you expect from you dog.Ĭhoose a word that you don’t use in another context, and that doesn’t begin with a syllable that sounds like another cue. My definition of Stand is simply that: Stop and Stand Still for a moment. I’ve learned that just stopping them is the easiest to teach, so it’s the best place to start. A ‘flying lie down” is a great thing to have, but again, that’s asking a dog to do two things to one cue–stop or slow way down, then lie down.
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STEP ONE: Decide on a good cue, not to mention the meaning of it. So why not train them one at a time, and help your dog succeed at each stage? Here’s the way I go about it. If a dog is moving away from you, and can’t even see you, it has to first stop it’s forward motion, turn around, and then come back to you. It evolved because I learned early on that yelling “Come” to a dog who is moving fast away from you was more successful if it was preceded by a Stop signal first. I fell into training it as a matter of course a bit sideways. I have friends who have wisely never let their hounds, adopted long after puppyhood, off leash in an open, unfenced environment, and I say “Hear Hear!” to them.īut it’s a wonderful tool to have in your tool box, and it’s easier to teach to some dogs than many might imagine. I didn’t let Skip, already a highly-trained sheepdog, off leash on our country walks until I’d had him for a good three or four months or so, after training and testing and training and testing. Is it possible to stop every dog, of every breed, to stop on cue if chasing a deer while using positive reinforcement? I doubt it it’s important to be realistic here, both regarding the breed, and the dog’s level of training. (My skills at doing anything while videoing it at the same time are, uh, limited.) It is, of course, not the perfect video, or the best video, but darn it, it’s a video. Here’s me asking the dogs to “Stand” in the back yard. Gotta love one of life’s beautiful ironies. But wait, no I wouldn’t, because I simply wouldn’t let my dogs off leash if I wasn’t confident that my dogs would stop when I said “Stand.” It’s something I work hard on, because the more control I have, the more freedom my dogs have. Frankly, I’d be a nervous wreck on walks if I didn’t know my dogs would stop when told if they flush a deer from the brush. (When I say “running away,” I mean “running with their faces turned away from their humans, not “running away” as in packing up their dog beds and leaving home.) I can’t imagine having a dog who won’t stop right away if he or she is regularly off leash. Will your dog stop on cue when trotting, loping or full-out running away from you? I consider it an essential tool for any dog that is ever off leash.