Puppy/Dog Training - Part 1: Basic Obedience Terms

This is the first in several training blog posts. Since some dogs can learn hundreds of words and poodles are one of the breeds that can learn the most words, I will start with the most basic commands that you should teach your puppy (or dog if they haven't learned these yet,) and later cover many others that you could teach. Some of these words our puppies will already have been introduced to by the time they go home. While these are the typical words used in training dogs in the US, the words or even the language can be different. There are also several ways to train dogs and I will try to touch on several different methods throughout these blog posts. An introduction to the basic terms are listed below in alphabetical order.

Come - the dog should come from wherever it is to you and sit in front of you

Down - the dog lays down and remains down until released

Heal - the dogs moves to your left side and walks beside you with the dogs neck at about your leg and not further in front of you, they should sit beside you if you stop walking

Leave It - the dog should leave alone whatever it was paying attention to, chewing on, eating, smelling, etc.

No - the basic stop what you are doing, often paired with another command but this gets their attention; for example "no! off" or "no! leave it"

Off - get off whatever they are jumping on or have already jumped up onto whether that is a gate, a person, or furniture; may be paired with "no jump, off"

OK - this is the term we use to release a dog from a sit, stay, down or wait command

Out or Drop It or Give It - we use "drop it" if something is in their mouth that you want them to drop on the ground or floor and "give it" if something is in their mouth and you want them to place it in your hand; others use "out"

Quiet (sh) - means exactly that to be quiet, whether they are whining or barking, but often times we will also use just the "shhh" sound to quiet and calm the pups down

Sit - means to sit on their haunches straight and at attention for the next command or a release

Stay - means they are to either stay in the sit or down position, ideally even if you walk away and out of sight until released

*Touch - this is a new one to us but often used in service dogs or police and military, it can be used in place of come and some dogs respond better to it especially in a distracting setting. It means to come to you and touch your hand with their nose. This makes it easier to catch them or protect them or keep them from the distraction. This seems like a great command but I have not tried it with any of our dogs or puppies yet. I will post more when we do try it.

Wait - means pause and wait for further instructions; we use this when we open the door to the outside so they don't rush out, or when we are feeding them so they don't spill the food

*Watch Me - this is another command new to us and used with service, police or military dogs; it means the dog should make eye contact with you and be attentive to you and nothing else until the next command is given. This is great to keep their attention on you in situations that may be very distracting. It keeps them safe and doing what you want them to do. I will post more when we try this one. Our puppies are very attentive and already make good eye contact so we believe this will be an easy one to teach them.

Future posts will explain how to teach these different commands and we will supplement with videos as well.