[Caesarsmom]

Many excellent posts here. The way I train my dogs is: SIT means SIT, and DOWN means DOWN......but if I plan on leaving....then I give the command to stay, and they need to stay like I left them until I return. I have a 16 week old puppy who is beginning puppy classes, and our sits and downs are VERY brief. Anytime she breaks an exercise, she is told, "no," and put back into position --- no rough corrections at her young age. I do not use food or toys as motivation during training....only praise. I also try to praise them before they make a mistake, signalling the end of the excercise, as I do not like to correct them too much when they are so young. I realize everyone does things differently.....but this has worked well for me, as I only have companions, and do not seriously compete in ob.

If I may boast a bit here though --- I had my male ob trained, and at 3 yo, we were going for his American Temperament Test title. We arrived at the course, and I had no idea that we would be obliged to leave our dogs and walk the course, while listening to a (supposedly) short explanation of the history of the test, test requirements, expectations, etc., etc., etc. Well, the test grounds were held in the wide open.....absolutely no fencing, right on a local lake (with ducks)......and my boy was extremely prey driven. I had come with a friend, but her GSD was horribly dog aggressive, and the bystander she had asked to hold her dog for her, couldn't have my boy anywhere NEAR her's, so the only thing I could do was put my Caesar on a down-stay. I was probably a good 350 feet away from him with the other participants, so he could still see me, and for 45 minutes, he switched sides, but did not attempt to stand or sit. I was so proud of him. He had done down-stays before, but never for 45 minutes. I wanted to bust my buttons!!! BTW, we were first up for testing that day, and passed with flying colors!