five (make that 3) more things you should teach your dog

Following on from my earlier post, five things you should teach your dog, here are a few more absolute essentials that didn't make the cut on the original five.

1.  Leave - Also known in some training classes as "Leave It".  The addition of the "it" may have something to do with the fact that dogs hear hard consonants better than soft sounds, so finishing the command on a hard T gives it a bit of extra punch.  Otherwise it can sound to a dog a bit like any other eee-word.  This really is an essential command for every dog.  It's useful for getting him to part with treasures he finds such as tissues, shoes, disgusting things found in fields, or, as in the case of Keskiyo a few years ago, a live and rather surprised pheasant.  Keskiyo, whose leave is really excellent, dropped the pheasant, albeit probably as much in shock at having caught it as in response to my roared command.  Nonetheless, drop it he did, and it survived to wind up another dog on another day.  Leave also works as in "leave that other dog/cat/person alone."

Karhu:  "May I please leave this bath?"

2.  Heel - Otherwise known as walking nicely on a lead.  This can be a tough one for Lapphunds.  Neka took an absolute age to finally stop pulling on her lead, regardless of how much training we did.  And we did a lot.  When she was about 5 months old she actually pulled me over into the street in the path of a bus.  Lappies pack a lot of power for a relatively small dog and they go from 0 to 60 in a split second, usually off to the side, taking your shoulder out of its joint as they go.  There are lots of good products available to help with the really stubborn pullers, and I eventually went the harness and head collar route.  These days she's excellent on her lead.  Unless she sees a squirrell, of course.  Or a cat.  Or occasionally a squirrell-shaped blowing leaf.

3.  Off - This is the all-purpose command to mean "get all 4 paws on the ground".  Use it to mean "get off the sofa," or "get off the street from the path of oncoming taffic and back onto the pavement," or "get off the stairs."  The real biggie, though, for this command is to stop your dog jumping up on people.  Some are happy to have their dog jumping up occasionally for a quick cuddle.  After all, it's certainly easier to reach them when they jump up to you rather than you bending down to their level.  However, if you do that you need to beware that they will forevermore equate jumping up on people with affection and therefore they will jump up on other people at every opportunity.  Don't let your dog jump up on other people, people.  Little folks don't do too well with dogs jumping up on them.  Equally old folks.  Not to mention folks dressed in their nice clothes.




Kallio illustrating another excellent use for the "Off" command.  Obviously he thinks anything the cat can do is fair game.











There are lots of things you can and should teach your dog, but I've reached the end of my list of absolute essentials.  Hmmm, maybe I should have kept point one from the first list as separate entries: sit, down, stay. That would have nicely filled out 2 sets of 5.

What has been the best or most important thing you ever taught your dog?