What Is The First Thing You Train Your Dog When He Comes Home?

[Riika]

That other training thread made this question arise in my mind.... What is the first thing your dog learns when he enters your house?

Other than the basic potty breaking and such, the first thing mine learn is their name/recall. The second is down. My reasoning for this is, obviously I want my dog to come when called, but say we are out walking. He crosses the road (our land is on both sides of the road) and when trying to come back, here comes a car. I can "down" him until the car goes by. Or in later training, say herding, if he gets to aroused and can't listen to commands, I can yell "down" and they usually drop and I can get them refocused and continue on.

So what are yours?

[CptJack]

The very first thing I teach my dogs formally is 'touch' - their nose to my hand. That's because it's easy, it can be used as an emergency recall, and it teaches the dogs that by doing things they can get things from me/make things happen. It makes learning a game.

But to be honest I teach that, recall, sit, down, and the start of stay all at once, right along side their names and house manners/house training and bring the stick/ball back when I throw it, and take it and 'out' for tug - ie: GAMES. And when they're very small, I 200% want it to be a game that the puppy finds the most awesome thing in the world. It helps a lot when you need to move on to harder things and things that are maybe not so much fun for the dog.

[Riika]

But to be honest I teach that, recall, sit, down, and the start of stay all at once, right along side their names and house manners/house training and bring the stick/ball back when I throw it, and take it and 'out' for tug - ie: GAMES. And when they're very small, I 200% want it to be a game that the puppy finds the most awesome thing in the world. It helps a lot when you need to move on to harder things and things that are maybe not so much fun for the dog.

I do too. But the things I REALLY work on are the aforementioned. About stay... I have a different version than what most people know. Stay for my dogs means, don't get off that four-wheeler, of out of that stock trailer yet. I don't use it to say, "Down. Okay, now stay." They know that whatever position I put them in, they are to stay there until otherwise told.

[CptJack]

My dogs have an automatic stay associated with any positional command given - that doesn't need to be verbally spoken. It's part of the command. They sit, then they stay until released.

 

My stay, as a separate command, literally means stay where you are, for as long as it takes.

Then there's wait, which is a less formal/shorter duration stay.

 

I honestly don't REALLY work much on anything if I'm honest. I find most of that stuff comes along through daily life with most of my guys, but I'm a kind of lazy trainer. Train a lot, yes, and have well trained and well mannered dogs who do a lot of tricks, but the important stuff, ironically, is the stuff I have to formally teach the least. Probably because it's always used. Wait for the door to be opened/me to catch up/the ball. Stay for the picture. Recall does too and a lot like 'stay' it's got about three versions and commands of varying intensity.

 

It all somehow still gets into their heads by about the time they're four months old with little to no pressure being applied, though of course proofing and speed and duration keep building.

And, heck, the behaviors keep building on themselves, too.

[dsmbc]

For me the first things are name/recall and crate games - can't say enough about how important this is.

[juliepoudrier]

1. Don't chase the cat(s) (and this goes hand-in-hand with learning correction words like Aht! or No!)

2. Name

3. Crates are good places to be. (2 and 3 are pretty much simultaneous, and 3 could be simultaneous with 1 if pup persists in being naughty with the cats).

 

J.

[Gideon's girl]

All of the above and "Ring the bell to go out" so that by the time they are turned loose in the house, they already know how to tell me when they want to go out.

[moosikins]

Other than her name, the first thing we taught Callie was "sit". We use it to calm her down when she's getting too wound up, got too close to something she shouldn't (we use leave it instead now), or needs to wait for something.

 

Really useful for any situation in which you need your pup to plop their rump down right where they are quickly.

 

This morning, I made her sit while I tied my shoes to take her for a walk. She accosted me twice before I put her in a sit and twitched with excitement the whole time she sat there.

[Root Beer]

Click means treat

Nose touch to hand

Nose touch to object

 

Those are the first things I teach.

 

We go on to whiplash turns/recalls from there.

[D'Elle]

First thing I taught foster dogs who came into my home was to wait at the door before going out. Not that that is more important than something else, but it always seemed to be the thing that came up first, since the dogs have to come in and go out. Usually it was learned fast, since all my dogs do it impeccably.

then: do not chase cats, click/treat, sit, lie down, come. Loose leash walking. Even if a dog was only with me for a few days, he or she had usually learned or gotten a good start at learning those things before moving on.

[CMP]

I don't worry about much in the first few weeks except getting them used to their name, teaching them the house rules (includes potty training, not chasing cats, etc.) and figuring out what sort of toys and activity they like.

 

I'm one of those people who realizes one day that the dog sits and stays and has a vague sense of "wow, they learned that without me even teaching them".

 

 

But, in order, the things I proof are:

 

Name (recall is a process and I work on it constantly, with no real expectation that it will mean much until they are 4-5 months old), sit, down, stay, wait, slow, get, bring, give, let go/out of that.

[Cass C]

Personally I find 'leave it' to be the first command I teach (along with their name). I like to be able to call my dog off anything. If I drop anything on the ground or notice a moving object catch their eye (cats, cars, squirel, ect...), I just say leave it and they refocus on something else.

[JohnLloydJones]

The first thing I teach new fosters, after establishing a "piddle-free zone"™, is mealtime etiquette. Everyone eats from the bowl they're given and doesn’t touch others' until they have finished. After that, I teach name recognition and recall and the all-important Wait! command (aka boundary command).