Now we see the bigotry inherent in the system.
Making sure they won’t run into/cross a street without being given permission can be a life-saver.
Teach him to drive himself to the dog park.
Teach him languages, they broaden the mental horizon and foster tolerance. Fish language is very easy to start with, sheep and cow languages are manageable too, depending on the local dialect. Cat vernacular is hard, but can be very useful if the dog manages the bidirectional interpreting level. He’ll probably never completely get rid of the growling accent while purring, but it will be satisfying nonetheless.
Some agility training could be useful. It’s fun for the dog and helps keep them in shape. I teach my dogs to jump through hoops, to complete a circuit marked with flags, and I used to do ramps and ladders, but haven’t with my current pups, as I haven’t had the set-up or the time to go to classes where they do.
One of my favorites is “load up.” I’ll be at the park, my dogs will hop into the car, while I watch others trying to shove, push, or pull their dog into their backseat.
“Back (it) up” is also very useful, as they typically tend to follow me around, and will block doorways or hallways until I tell them to get out of my way.
I have one that was accidentally taught and then expanded on.
“Who is it” means that the person coming is a friend. If a car pulls in the driveway and the person is a welcome guest I say “Who is it” and he gets exited and runs to the door to greet the person. Without the “who is it” he will see them coming and try to bark them away. It also works when walking down the street and meeting a neighbor. He will get in bark/growl mode until I say “Who is it” and then gets exited to meet them.
I more or less do that, except it’s, “Your friend is here.”
I actually don’t mind them barking at people coming into the house if I don’t know that they are, even if its a person I know. But I do like getting them to be calm and quiet when I am expecting someone.
It’s the strangest thing. Both of our dogs go to DEFCON 1 when they hear any kind of knock. Say a knock on a table or wall. Thing is, we never have people coming to the house randomly. Not neighbors or UPS or FedX. Our doors don’t get knocked on.
I could knock on my desk right now (like ‘knock on wood’) and they would go apeshit. Pounding a nail in the wall is fine though.
Another useful skill to teach is allowing you through doors first. When we approach a door with Kizzy on leash, she has to sit until we decide the best way to go through the doorway. Only then does she proceed.
Yeah, ours does that whenever a car door slams out front even when it is not for us, or when a car or delivery truck go by. It’s like she is expecting someone - someone to come and take her away? We have worked thru most of her other behavior issues from when we got her in late April, but noises outside triggering panicky barking remains.
Oh yeah. We get moose wandering around our yard.
Being able to say wait until I step out to check for moose or other critters is great. I KNOW they would try to chase them.
Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. I really appreciate the time you took to respond. I forgot to mention in the OP that “come” is still a work in progress; if he’s interested in something on the ground, it sometimes takes a couple of times for him to actually respond. We need to get him to be more responsive about that. He’s much more scent-driven than any other dogs we’ve had, and a walk around our neighborhood that took 30 minutes with other dogs we’ve had takes at least 10 minutes longer because of the extra time to stop and sniff. He’s never been off-leash except in a fenced dog park, and I’m 99% sure he’d come to me (even if it takes a couple of tries) when called, but that’s not enough.
The “find it” exercise sounds really good – because he’s so scent-driven, it’d be interesting to see how he does with that.
We started teaching him “place” when we had a house (we’ve recently sold our house and are now traveling the throughout the United States in a fifth-wheel)… That’s probably another skill he needs to learn, though – we had guests in our fifth-wheel a couple of weeks ago, and he was pretty much all up in their faces while they were sitting on the couch. It’s good that they were dog people as well, but it’d be good to tell the dog to go somewhere else for a while.
The “back” command is definitely a good one to consider: if there’s any indication that we are going outside, the dog takes every opportunity to get up in our business and trips over our feet while we’re putting on shoes.
Speaking of business, he does also know to relieve himself outside when we say “business” – that’s a very handy skill that I also forgot to mention in the OP.
Getting him to heel is definitely high on the list as well – he’s not necessarily a big puller, but constant tension on his leash gets old after a very short time.
Thanks again!
Don’t be this dog!
(The third dog in the trial, the Golden Retriever, starting at 0:50):
We were watching the hound competition at Westminster one year and somebody must have dropped a piece of bait because every one of them, on the diagonal, did a head fake on the diagonal run. Nothing like that retriever, just one quick look and back to business but they all did it.
Yeah, if you have dog that’s really food motivated, be careful! LOL.
Our doxie definitely is, and my sister made the mistake of giving him a treat after every meal and everytime he comes in from outside. He. Does. Not. Forget. … Ever.
Fortunately, all his treats are healthy – baby carrots, little Charlie Bear “cookies” and his hands-down favorite? Ice berg lettuce.
Try to incorporate a specific hand gesture with each command. This way you can communicate with and control your animal non-verbally, for all kinds of situations where you can’t call out to him. It’s possible you do this already, consciously or not. There’s still at least some debate as to whether dogs are really learning words or are reacting to body language; it’s most likely both, so that being the case, at the very least you’re maximizing the teaching odds in your favor.
One of my high school English teachers had a sideline training dogs. She taught her own dog to put bottles and papers into designated recycling bins.
We do this with “sit” and “lay” (closed fist held at chest level and one finger pointing at the floor/ground, respectively). It is definitely handy. I’ll see about using other gestures for other skills – thanks!
Every dog I’ve ever had reacts to words. Haven’t you ever said “din din” to a dog who is not looking at you…maybe not even in the same room? Our current dog, Max, also knows “hungry,” so if we want to tell the other person we’re hungry (and it’s not time to feed the dog) we’ve started using the word “peckish.” I’m half expecting him to learn that one, too.
This is true – we inadvertently trained our dog to run to the window and look outside whenever we say the word “dog,” so we started using “hound” when referring to him or another dog amongst ourselves (because we can’t say his name without eliciting a response, too, of course) if we don’t want him to run to a window. He’s picked up on “hound,” so now we’re using “perro.” The German word for dog is too close to “hound” to be of any use.
We had a beagle years ago who learned the word for milk was “leche.” And she looooooooved her leche.