Yeah you're right! I guess I always saw it as a shouted command: SETTLE! It never made sense to shout the dog into submission, nothing settling about it. This is how I saw it demonstrated at that dog school. It ended up with the dog lying on its side not daring to move with the handler foot on leash and keeping the dog's head fixed to the ground. To me it looked like a Caeser Milan maneuver. Our "go sleepy" is a suggestion to Snowie, but only cued if he is tired but perhaps unsettled, like an overtired baby. It sets him into auto mode and he goes to his bed and goes to sleep. But try saying Go Sleepy when he's all alert out and about -- won't work.
My "settle down" cue just means "you're not involved in this". I use it mostly when I'm training multiple dogs. I don't care what position the dogs are in, as long as they stay in place, and I don't expect for a minute that they're going to relax - they're too tuned in to what's going on. I would cue the same if I were in a bar or similar, and they probably would relax after a while, if there's nothing exciting going on. But, for us, "settle down" is just "nothing here for you".
My supervisor has a good way of teaching 'settle'. You put your foot on the lead then wait until the pup properly settles - head down, hips flopped over and relaxed. Immediately they do this you praise and throw food nearby so that they get up. Rinse and repeat about five or six times per training session. After a week or so you add the cue 'settle' when they flop over. Soon they will settle when you put the lead down and use the cue. No, I haven't tried it, yet!
We haven't taught "Paw" He does "paw" for one friend who visits occasionally. We haven't taught "Settle" he does "go to bed though" We haven't taught "off" the sofa we've actually taught him "up" to cone up for cuddles. No "roll over" either, that's just for little dogs. If I threw a second ball for Homer he'd come back with two balls in his mouth. Sometimes I throw two balls at the same time, he picks them both up and returns them both.
Dogs learn Paw instinctively, so it is really easy to teach, though not terribly useful. Our dogs do Low Five, High Five, and Other Paw. High or Low Five is pretty much where we put our hand. All of ours do Sit and Down with hand signals, as well as verbal commands.
This has turned into a rather fascinating thread, finding out what people DON'T teach their dogs! I can't imagine not teaching a 'down' for example. Good grief, I used that constantly. And "up/off". And "don't touch/take it". And "wait", "stand", "under", "go through", "backup". All those I would have been dead in the water without. I also found silly tricks to be really useful in Brogan's case. His favourite party trick was picking up his leash and putting it into my hand. That was the best at airport security, as we'd always get the total scrutiny (and scepticism) but telling him to stand and wait while I went through the scanner alone, then calling him through the scanner and telling him to get his leash and hand it to me...95% of the time that little trick would get the security officers right over on our side and cooing over "that great dog", where seconds before they'd be eyeballing him like he was the demon dog from hell. PR really is everything!
It matters not a jot to the dog whether it's a "silly trick" you're teaching or something more important like "touch" or "leave" - it's all learning, it exercises the mind and it's all fun for the dog. I was watching a chap at training last night, who'd taught his Lab to put her foot on top of his while she was in a close sit. I quite liked this.
I spend a lot of time on this forum bemoaning Pongo's lack of training (all my fault). So here is a chance to celebrate the things that we have never trained, but which he does out of choice / instinctively. He has never, never tried to steal food. We can put our dinners down on the low coffee table in the sitting room while we go out to the kitchen to get a drink, and he will watch over them avidly - but never, never put his nose on the plate or steal anything. We've never trained this because he has always acted like this. He never comes upstairs, even though the baby-gate hasn't been up since he was about 5 months old. Even when we have canine visitors and they go up, he will stay at the bottom and just whine. He has never counter-surfed. After he stopped teething, he has never chewed anything destructively. He knows his toys and he understands that everything else is out of bounds. So despite his lack of recall and lead-walking, he is a good boy really!
It's funny, Ella is exactly the same. Honestly, I think I could smother our bench tops in raw meat, leave the house and come back to find it as I left it. I don't think it ever occurred to her to jump up
Haha no! How about I make you feel better by mentioning the fact that there is absolutely nothing that will get in the way of this dog stealing socks! She's even stolen them from Nathan's (18 month old son) feet!
Same with Quinn. OH once left a sandwich right beside her while he was putting gas in the car and she didn't touch it!
Vanilla must have similar a similar gene. Meat on counter no issue even right on the edge, does not bother her to jump up (puddle around her feet a different story and thos eyes). If we leave she will sit there then decide to find us as if to say 'you know there is meat on top'. Socks however the biggest thing for her...panick always enlists when we have an odd sock, but always find the other quick enough
Stanleys the worst counter surfer!! It's mine & OH's fault really - we've never been consistent and we leave stuff out. He's definitely getting better, he's doesn't steal stuff directly infront of us anymore. But he did eat a bottle of fry light the other day
Rory ate a Garlic bread off a baking tray yesterday Moo grabbed half it wasn't even cooked. hope Stanners is ok
Nah, it's (nearly) all about the dog, I reckon. Willow and Shadow have had the exact same upbringing at the exact same time, apart from 8-14 weeks, when they were too small to reach anything anyway. Willow has been a horror for counter-surfing, Shadow isn't interested. Nor is Luna. I'm sure you can create a counter-surfing habit in dogs that don't have it, but I think a lot of it is in-built curiosity. I was so careful at first with W&S, but Willow clearly found the act of simply looking rewarding, even when there was nothing there. Then, she inevitably got some things, because she was always checking it out and we're human. You know what? She's now nearly three and recently grown out of it. Don't stress about creating the beast. The beast was probably there all along
Yes, totally agree, the Beast in Benson was there from day one... He absolutely will grab anything of the counter, even attempted to grab my toasted ham and cheese croissant of the work top by sneaking his head up under my arms as I was finishing them off! Bramble would never counter surf...nor Casper.
Hehe, and I should note that, although Willow appears to be growing out of it, you shouldn't necessarily count on this happening. The Beast is still very much in Benson, as everyone discovered on his trip to Cornwall
Charlie has many faults and training issues but the one thing he doesn't do is counter surf. I could leave the Sunday roast in snatching reach and he wouldn't take it, again never trained it. So proud of my boy for this BUT Hattie would steal it in a heartbreat x
