Schutzhund training

[200xth]

Are you working on basic obedience yet?
Just good recall, along with reliable sit, down, and a good heel on leash will go far.

Jeff Gelmann (spell?) of SolidK9Training has many videos.
I like him a lot for just good basic, easy-to-live-with dog behavoir.
We have three dogs; without the basics life would be chaos.
Even with just the basics, and my girls are sometimes still sloppy about it... the neighbours are impressed! I get compliments all the time when out with them.

Yep. Been working on basic obedience since I got him at 2 months old. At 3 months old, I started watching the Michael Ellis videos and have been following those ever since.


I didn't do everything quite right, didn't really understand a couple of concepts at the time (mainly the massive importance of engagement traing) and I have to fix a few things now, but he's done alright and I think we have a decent foundation to work from.


He knows his basics...sit, stand, down. He can stay for a decent amount of time. If there's no one around, I can have him sit or stay in place, walk around 40 or 50 feet away, have him sit, stand, down from whereever I left him, and he'll usually be good til he's released. He'll come running straight to me when he's released and it's reward time.

Recall is erratic if I'm just letting him poke around free, but we're working on it. He can heel on both sides with no leash, although this is not super reliable yet. He's making good progress on it. Loose-leash walking on either side is very good...just taking him for a basic walk is not an issue.


The main thing I made a mistake on is the engagement and focus part. It was so easy teaching him to sit and down early on I think I got too caught up in behaviors and didn't concentrate enough on focus. That's the big thing I'm working on with him now. Not really any new behaviors, just keeping him focused and engaged with me and reinforcing the current ones. He's a puppy still, 7.5 months, so it's hit or miss with the focus sometimes, but at his age I expect butterflies and smelly things to be interesting so I'm not too worried. It's getting better slowly and I expect it will continue to get better as he gets older and we continue working on it.


And same here...even with just these few basic things, people compliment him all the time on how well behaved he is and how well he listens. As his focus and engagement with me improves, and other people, dogs, etc become less interesting, we'll start being able to make big progress on his behaviors more.