New words for existing commands

[alligande]

I was wondering if any experienced rescue people had tried this: I know a lot about my BC Brodys past as I got him directly from his first family and they are happy to answer any questions I have. Before I get to the point let me give you a bit of background, he attended obedience school and knew his commands but they had not worked hard on enforcing them.

 

With us we found that all the new commands we taught him he responded quickly and postively, but existing commands particularly heel and come were dodgy, and he did not carry them out happily. So when I was working on weave poles I wondered if I renamed come to here and retrained him what would happen. The result in 2 days is a BC that comes at high speed with a great big grin. So now I am going to start on heel but first I need new word....

 

But I was really curious if others had tried this and if they had had good results.

[Root Beer]

Yes, I have trained new cues to replace poisoned cues and have had good results.

 

Sometimes I retrain the entire behavior and train the new cue, and sometimes I go back to a hand signal and train a new cue off of that. I've done this with cues that, for whatever reason, the dog had a negative association with, and with cues that I inadvertantly trained incorrectly. I've found that it's often easier to retrain as if it is a new behavior and put the new name on it, but that usually goes very fast with a behavior that the dog has some understanding of.

[PSmitty]

If you're having trouble with a command, by all means retrain it with a new name. Whatever works! I'd say that applies to rescues, but also a dog that you've previously trained but maybe made some mistakes with, or are just looking for a fresh start.

[MaggieDog]

I did this with a client's dog who had been trained using VERY heavy handed methods (they even managed to turn the clicker into a conditioned punisher! ). They switched to hand signals primarily (had to use new ones too), but also started giving cues in Spanish vs English. The dog blossomed and her general outlook on life greatly improved.

 

I routinely suggest that my students change their recall cues if the dog has ever associated it with negative consequences.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I've just gone through 2 recall classes and both times the majority of the class had to pick a new word for come and all dogs have done well. I think the key is (like someone else already said) is to start from the beginning and train the entire behaviour all over. Another variation of heel could be with me? I think i've heard some people use that...or close?

[Elizabeth77]

I have wondered about the use of certain words. Does anyone know whether dogs respond to sharp sounding words like 'Quiet' to stop barking other than'Shhh' . Another like 'Come' sharp K sound as opposed to 'Here' a softer sound. Do you see what I mean? I have a feeling Meg reacts better to the sharp sounds , I don't mean actually spoken sharply but just the sound the word makes. Daft idea? Probably so just tell me

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[hsnrs]

The recall was hard for my dog too. Switched to "with me" and "here" which works better. Also we use "no bark" instead of shush or quiet.

[sweet_ceana]

We had multiple recall words as well until we finally (as handlers) got the training right.

[alligande]

Thought this most be something that worked, next up heel. Although I am sure the transformation is not going to be as quick.