# Long Brags - Basic & Adv OB classes done!



## Ruger Monster (Jan 29, 2015)

Long brags, with pictures 

Ruger finished his Basic & Advanced obedience lessons on Sunday  Proud of my hard-headed little brat! He has pretty much excelled at everything we taught him. Our trainer is a fan of GSDs, and was excited to get started with him - so excited he added an extra time slot in his day for Ruger's first lesson back in April. Even he was impressed with how quickly Ruger caught on to the new commands we were working on. We started the day after Ruger turned 5 months old:

Here's the picture the trainer posted to their FB page the day we started:









The first week was "Come" - the training leash was used A LOT for that one, but he still began responding 1000x better than before. I actually think that was the toughest one for him. Probably because my boy wants to do what HE wants to do  

The second week, we worked on the place command. That has been his ABSOLUTE favorite. This boy wants to place on everything you tell him to. He picked up on it IMMEDIATELY. We only had to show him once, and he was a placing machine. He even would do place and let us walk 50+ yards away from him without moving, which was considered more advanced.









































Our 3rd lesson was "heel" ... oh what a difference in our lives this made!! No more puppy choking himself down the street. Most of the time, it would be on our way BACK to the house from the mailboxes - he would be like "MOM! I KNOW HOW TO GET HOME!" and *attempt* to drag me down the street to the house (which just resulted in him choking himself). He only needed mild correction during the lesson hour, and at home it was maybe 500ft before he fell in step with us on our walk. He did try the occasional herding push, but instantly went back to heel when corrected.

Our 4th lesson was "down on place" and "extended down". He'd easy "down", but want to be right in your face while doing it. Getting him to down from 10ft away was something new. Then one day at the house while we were working him, he decided that "sure, I'll down from 50 yards away & wait until you tell me to break, easy peasy!" A down on place practiced inside:









Our first advanced lesson was "Come to heel" - I was actually surprised how quick he caught on with that one, it was almost instantaenous, and he's very willing to comply with that one. 

Our next advanced lesson was "Touch" ... he would get touch confused with place because of the same hand signal at first, but began realizing the sound. 

































Our next lesson was "Circle" - get him to circle objects and return to the heel position. This one still needs some work, as he still requires direction from the leash at times. We have to build distance as well. Our last lesson, this past Sunday, was going to be "Watch", but it was hard to get him to work on that with the distractions at the park our lessons were at. So the trainer showed me what to be working on for it and suggested we do it at home where it's quieter and he could focus more. We ended up working on a "send off to place" .... of course he did it GREAT the first time - when no one had a camera out. Then he got hot, tired & cranky since it was nearing the end of his hour. We are going to make a video of that at home per the trainers request  I do have a video of him doing his basic commands, but I think I'll make one of him doing all of them. We want to solidify them all, as we've slacked at evening training at home with painting the walls and work, but we want to get him his CGC. They offer a few more commands if we want to do extra lessons outside the package we'd gotten, and I've thought about putting him in their basic nosework program to see if that is something he'd be good with. 

Sorry for the super long brags  I was completely LOST with training in the beginning, even though I read my Puppy books front to back - I needed someone to show me and lead me in the right direction, which resulted in a puppy that does things I never even would have thought of doing or being able to teach. He also impresses the people at the vet when he hops right up on that scale and sits down when I tell him to place


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

Congrats & great job to both of you!!


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

Awesome job everyone!Love the "place" pics


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## XindisMom (Jun 14, 2015)

Way to go! For u and your doggie baby! Awesome!! Plus your doggie is beautiful!!! Congrats!!


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## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

Love it! So nice to hear someone take advantage of dog classes and then seeing how fantastic our smartie pants dogs can be!


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## J-Boo (Mar 5, 2015)

<3 <3 Love the pictures. Ruger's like, "Look what I can do, look what I can do!"


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## Ruger Monster (Jan 29, 2015)

Thanks all  

He does love to show off how smart he is. Now that I know how to go about teaching him things, I hope to be able to teach him some extra stuff on my own. When we got him, my BF's stipulation to me was that he absolutely had to go through training because we refuse to have a ~80+lb adult dog running the show and not listening. It's bad enough having a little 25lb dog that doesn't listen.... she's next


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## Iowafisher (Sep 8, 2015)

Sounds like he has a good head on his shoulders


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## Jayfeather (Dec 28, 2014)

Your dog is gorgeous! And great job with the training!


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## Bella67 (Jun 22, 2014)

Congrats!


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## dre915 (Sep 21, 2015)

Congratz! He looks amazing! Good Job with the Training!


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## newlie (Feb 12, 2013)

Congrats to you and your beautiful boy!


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