"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:51:02 -0400, Gerald Miller
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:03:40 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:

Rich Grise writes:

On Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:50:20 -0500, Don Foreman wrote:

Some dogs just aren't worth a **** from the gitgo. If they're just
stupid and basically untrainable but someone loves them then they get
kept, but a pet that harms or kills someone else's livestock or pets
is not acceptable. The options are to restrain it, retrain it, or
destroy it.

I've heard that it's not the dogs that need obedience school - it's
their human keepers.

A completely true statement: the class is about teaching you to train
your dog. You do the training every day between classes (my dog is
currently looking reproachfully at me, since she's gotten so little time
lately...).
Puppy completely failed obedience class, however, on the record of
attendance, at 4 months of age, she and all the other puppies got a
certificate, bag of cookies and pamphlet of other trick like shake a
paw. My reaction was "Lacey, shake a paw" and up came the right paw.
Brought the house down. Now, when in doubt, up comes the paw, but
don't grasp, just shake.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

My youngest daughter is a natural. We had a couple of abysmally
stupid miniature dachshunds that the kids loved and I secretly
regarded as musky bait. There was a neighborhood "obedience contest"
where kids would bring their pets and show how they'd trained them.

Karen, about 5 at the time, done broke the code. She just watched the
dog to see what it'd do and then immediately commanded it to do it in
a surprisingly stentorian tone for such a tiny person.

When she sternly commanded "Ginger, PEE", the judges lost it. She got
a blue ribbon.

True story.

It is easy to teach a dog to pee on command. Just go out with them, and at
the exact moment they squat and release, command, "Pee, or whatever." Some
trainers I have seen used the word whittle, and repeated it three times.
Has to come right at that moment of release, and with all dog training, lots
of practice and persistence. Then praise and a nice rub.

Steve