# Help With Some Commands



## ladyfreckles (Nov 10, 2011)

Currently working on Pass Auf (watch), Perching, Pakken (bite), and touch. The two big ones are Pass Auf and Touch. Perching is going slowly but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it (I use a phone book). 

Can anyone give me tips on teaching how to get him to "touch" (when you point at something and he touches it with his paw)? Any advice on teaching the other commands is helpful too.  Perching I think I'm getting the hang of, it's just a matter of holding his attention for long enough. He'll bite just about anything, but sometimes if he's distracted he won't listen (same with sit and platz, actually). I'm working on doing those commands in more distracting areas like the park or outside the grocery store (slowly building up to that). 

Tips would be appreciated!


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

Are you training your dog in SchH or Ring? I don't understand how you would be working on watch and bite at the grocery store. Your dog should only be using these commands when working with a helper or a decoy and not randomly like this.


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## ladyfreckles (Nov 10, 2011)

Elaine said:


> Are you training your dog in SchH or Ring? I don't understand how you would be working on watch and bite at the grocery store. Your dog should only be using these commands when working with a helper or a decoy and not randomly like this.


Sorry, didn't think I would have to clarify. Working on "sit" and "platz" outside the grocery store, so he learns to keep focus on me and not everything interesting around him. Yes I do intend to do schutzhund. I was going to a club for about a month but some things came up and it's being put on hold for awhile (re-evaluating in July-August). Learned bite while at the schutzhund club with a helper, and started learning pass auf towards the end of it.


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

What are you doing with the perch and the touch? Agility?


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## ladyfreckles (Nov 10, 2011)

Elaine said:


> What are you doing with the perch and the touch? Agility?


Yep. I work on agility at training (we do a private training session 1-2 times a month). Perch is also good for building awareness of the rear, which is a good thing with or without agility. We start our agility class in June (signed up and everything). So far he's great with tunnels. We're not doing any jumping until he's grown more, just working on desensitizing him to equipment and getting him to be aware of how his body moves (which since he's a little clumsy right now, even for a puppy, is a good thing). 

I think it's important to work on these at home, too, though, so I as a trainer get practice giving them and making sure I'm using the right signals and not confusing the dog.

Was told by the helper that I could work on pass auf and pakken at home with Pat as the decoy. Pat was shown how to do it. I really wish I could be at the schutzhund club every week again, that was extremely helpful.


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

I hate to say it, but you can really screw up your dog by practicing watch and bite on an inexperienced helper without direct supervision. I certainly wouldn't do it. It would be much better to wait until you are ready to train on a regular basis. Starting with an untrained dog is much better than having to try and fix a screwed up dog once you are able to get back into it.


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## ladyfreckles (Nov 10, 2011)

Elaine said:


> I hate to say it, but you can really screw up your dog by practicing watch and bite on an inexperienced helper without direct supervision. I certainly wouldn't do it. It would be much better to wait until you are ready to train on a regular basis. Starting with an untrained dog is much better than having to try and fix a screwed up dog once you are able to get back into it.


Okay, this bothers me. I'm going to say why. 

I made this thread with the best intentions for my dog. I asked several questions, none of which have been answered. Instead I'm being grilled with questions and given orders. While the "advice" given here might be relavent, and I just might screw up my dog if I worked on pass auf/packen at home after being shown how, none of that really helps get me anywhere with training. I asked for help with perch work, help with distractions, and help with the "touch" command as well as help with the other things. None of that has been answered.

The posts are judgmental in tone, contribute absolutely nothing to this entire conversation, and show a desire to lecture/judge rather than actually help. You could have said, "Hey here's all I know about perch work, here's a helpful video" and tagged onto the end "Also I wouldn't work on the schutzhund commands without an experienced helper around". That would have been a nice way to do it, as well as a helpful and constructive way that changes the tone of the conversation. Instead you immediately created tension by asking accusatory questions. 

Think about this: if I was a new poster coming on here to ask this question, and I fully intended to train the dog with these command regardless of what people said/thought, the only thing your posts would have done is drive me off of this forum to get advice elsewhere rather than trust you. 

I have seen nothing helpful in this thread. No helpful tips for perching (which I _know_ is thought of positively by many people on here), no tips on touch, and nothing about working in distraction. Another thing is I know many dogs that are taught the perching and touch commands that have never done agility in their entire lives. They're not screwed up, in fact they are well behaved, love doing tricks and think it's all fun. Why does the reason I want to teach my dog a simple trick have any value in regards to whether or not you give advice? Perching is harmless, just like "stand", "sit" and "down" are. It's just teaching a dog to put his or her body into a certain position and move it. 

If anyone who actually wants to help me with the other things is willing to post, then please do so. For the rest of it I'll talk to a knowledgable trainer and work on it with them. But for the love of all things pawsitive, please do not come in here with interrogation on your mind.


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

you asked for advice and Elaine gave you some advice
to help you and your dog. you're not close to being grilled.

when i teach my dog a command i like to start teaching
the command in the house or in the yard. once the dog
starts understanding the command i add in distractions.
i think most things and situations are a distraction to
a pup. i think it's easier on the pup to start learning
the new command without distractions. when i add distractions
i make them easy in the begining then as the learning continues
the distractions become harder.


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## JanaeUlva (Feb 5, 2011)

LadyFreckles here is how I taught the touch. I like to use a calf feed bowl made of black thick rubber and about 8 inches in diameter. This bowl and width is nice because it's not too wide and it's round for when you do perch work. Sometimes it's fun to free shape a behavior and that is what I did with the touch. I put the bowl on the ground, upside down, and wait for the pup to pay attention to it. Mark and reward. You will do this a few times just don't get stuck at one place for too long. Move on and wait for more of the behavior you want. So the pup touches with a paw. Mark and reward. Finally you wait until they put both paws on the bowl, mark and reward. 

You can lure across the bowl to get the touch behavior but I think this is a good opportunity to free shape instead and teach the pup to work things out. For example, in agility there are a few ways to train the weaves. One way is to open them up and teach the dog to run down the middle. Then slightly close them up until the dog is weaving. Another method is to lure the dog thru the closed up weaves by pushing out with your knee and pulling in with food. Problem with the second method (luring) is the dog is looking at you for direction and eventually you have to "fade" the knee and the food lure. The first method, the dog learns how to weave without your interaction. No fading. Usually a better outcome.

Once you get a touch when you plop the bowl on the floor, THEN you put a command to it - "touch". The saying is "don't name it until you love it" and I love that! 

As far as Schutzhund, it depends on how serious you expect to get in it as to what you want to do at home. If you think you want to compete, I would leave the training alone until you can get guidance.

Instead, work on plan that is important no matter what and that would be good focus and a good relationship with your pup thru play and age appropriate obedience exercises that build the behavior of focus on you. Just a simple example, when Minka was a pup I would wait until she made eye contact before I would throw her ball. I would ask her to sit, make eye contact then throw the ball. I free shaped that she had to look at my eyes before I would let her out of the car or off the deck or thru a door. Just wait until the pup looks at you then mark and reward (or release). They learn quickly that eye contact is a good thing. In free shaping, you have to be patient and wait them out until the behavior occurs. Don't cheat  by showing them part of it. The process can help the dog with a concept of "if I figure out what my trainer wants, then I get what I want"."

Oh and yeah, add distractions in after the behavior is understood.

Good luck!


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## ladyfreckles (Nov 10, 2011)

doggiedad said:


> you asked for advice and Elaine gave you some advice
> to help you and your dog. you're not close to being grilled.
> 
> when i teach my dog a command i like to start teaching
> ...


I mentioned that in my post. Even though Elaine's post was _technically_ advice, it was gone about in the wrong way, ignoring all of my other questions. I consider it being "grilled" when people ask me several questions and then when I answer just refuse to help. IMO you shouldn't question why a person wants to do an innocent command like "perching". Pas Auf and Packen I can understand completely, especially if I was warned like I was in the below post. However you don't just respond to a post to tell a person what they're doing wrong without offering constructive and helpful criticism. That wasn't helpful. It was vague. You don't train your dog by constantly correcting/scolding him/her do you? That's now how you should "train" people, either. 

As for the distraction, that helps a bit. He can do commands on walks, hikes, at the park, at dog training class, or during high distraction events when I have good enough treats. But when something super exciting like Pat feeding the cats is going on he couldn't care less what I want him to do. 



JanaeUlva said:


> LadyFreckles here is how I taught the touch. I like to use a calf feed bowl made of black thick rubber and about 8 inches in diameter. This bowl and width is nice because it's not too wide and it's round for when you do perch work. Sometimes it's fun to free shape a behavior and that is what I did with the touch. I put the bowl on the ground, upside down, and wait for the pup to pay attention to it. Mark and reward. You will do this a few times just don't get stuck at one place for too long. Move on and wait for more of the behavior you want. So the pup touches with a paw. Mark and reward. Finally you wait until they put both paws on the bowl, mark and reward.
> 
> You can lure across the bowl to get the touch behavior but I think this is a good opportunity to free shape instead and teach the pup to work things out. For example, in agility there are a few ways to train the weaves. One way is to open them up and teach the dog to run down the middle. Then slightly close them up until the dog is weaving. Another method is to lure the dog thru the closed up weaves by pushing out with your knee and pulling in with food. Problem with the second method (luring) is the dog is looking at you for direction and eventually you have to "fade" the knee and the food lure. The first method, the dog learns how to weave without your interaction. No fading. Usually a better outcome.
> 
> ...


This is the post I was looking for! Thank you. I have printed your post out and it's hanging on my wall right now . Behavior shaping is how I got him to "wait" before bolting out of his crate. Never thought to apply it to "touch"! Lots of great info here, thanks. And I agree, for now I'll just work with tug and making that fun for him.


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

Nothing like people that come on here and ask vague questions, then get mad when asked to clarify and even more angry when they don't like the advice. If you don't want advice, then don't ask.


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## ladyfreckles (Nov 10, 2011)

Elaine said:


> Nothing like people that come on here and ask vague questions, then get mad when asked to clarify and even more angry when they don't like the advice. If you don't want advice, then don't ask.


My issue is with people who automatically assume the worst. I didn't have a problem with your advice, just the way you administered it. My original post may have been worded poorly, however I clarified that that wasn't what I meant. Then suddenly you're asking more questions. I clarified, but the _only_ thing you responded with was that I could screw up my dog by practicing only two of the commands I even asked about. You said nothing about perching, nothing about "touch" (both harmless commands), and nothing about working with distractions. Do you not realize how that can come off?


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

LadyFreckle's - I like you. I miss your posts here. I read your post on the other board and had every intention of coming here to post and help you until I actually read this thread.

IMO, you are over reacting to what Elaine is saying. She's just asking questions to better understand how to answer. 

And when you are asking for help...It's really bad taste to ask on one board and then go trash the people responding on another board. Which is one of the reasons I stopped answering some posters on this board. Why waste my time only to find extreme exaggerations, complete fabrications of what was said in quotes, and insults on another board regarding a post I may have taken time out of my life to make here? 

I hope when people are ranting on "the other board"  about how horrible we are on this one, they realize some of the same people that have tried to help them here read that board as well.


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## msvette2u (Mar 20, 2006)

While I'm not on "the other board" much...I feel obligated to comment on this thread and it's "tone".

I find it very interesting that certain members here have license and excuse to be rude all over the board, in the name of "being direct" or "not sugarcoating", yet others, if they take the same tone/tact, are warned.

In this thread and others, certain members are just that rude, yet nobody says boo.
Just a very interesting phenomenon.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Not sure what auf passen means to you but I use that as an aggressive alert (when I tell my dog to "pass auf" he hits the end of the leash barking) but I did introduce the command (and the recall to fuss!) as an obedience exercise for prey/toy. Does Viking bark when he's frustrated? If so, then this is pretty easy. I have the dog sit in basic position (heel) and toss a toy. If he's really into the toy he'll probably just go for it at first, and no need to correct this but praise him for barking and introduce the "pass auf" cue for this behavior. As the dog progresses, I alternate between calling the dog back to heel ("Hierd, fuss") and then releasing the dog to the toy, or having the dog pass auf and releasing him from there (this is to avoid the dog anticipating the recall and coming out of the guarding before he's told....big no-no if you ever do SDA). Of course with a toy it's all fun and games but IMO it can't really hurt and then when you start putting this into real protection, the dog will be in a different frame of mind but at least has a basic understanding of what you are asking when you give the cues. I'm going to start working on this with Pan and can make a video if that would help. He will alert on command but we need to start working on the control and recall. In my mind this is what we're really training, the CONTROL. A good GSD will already be ready and willing to alert to someone bad/threatening/suspicious whether they know the command or not. Also I like being able to turn my dogs on and off, I don't mean shut them down (I still want them to be capped in drive, ready to explode at the helper). I like being able to step onto the field with my dog quiet, loading up and sizing up the helper and when I get the "pa-" of the "pass auf" command off my tongue the dog explodes.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Also for "touch" I start with just one thing, like one of those Easy buttons. I like to freeshape the touch, so I don't really lure or help. First I click/treat *any* interaction with the object (sniffing, for example). Then after five of those I wait for *paw* interaction and only click/treat that. I do that for quite sometime and start adding the cue "touch". I used the same object for several sessions, until the dog knows the command. Then start substituting different objects and training the dog to generalize.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

I thought of another thing I do that could work with the pass auf. I've been starting to work in some sessions with Pan where I'm loading and capping drive. What I do is take a 10' line and attach it to my hitch and attach to Pan with a large flat collar. I also have his pinch collar on with my obedience leash attached. I start kicking around a ball or tug and get Pan all worked up, barking and lunging. Then I walk up to him so he's on my left and give a command like "sitz" or "platz". In my world these commands include a built in stay and a built in shut up. If he obliges I either unclip him and let him get the toy, or I say "pass auf" again and walk back in front, kick the toy around some more. This is *not* bitework, I'm just overloading my dog and then asking him to do what I say and to think while he's in a high state of drive. As we progress sometimes I unclip him and have him heel/fuss around and release him to grab the toy (anytime he's released to a toy he brings it back to me and we tug). When I do this my neighbors either think a) my dog is really cool because he is so drivey yet so compliant or b) I am some kind of hick that is training "attack dogs" by attaching them to my hitch. I don't care either way and typically a game like this only lasts 2-3 minutes max. I like these games because 1) it lets him have a time where it's OK to bark and go nuts, 2) it lets me work on control while the dog is really loaded and 3) it shows the dog that if he gives me the control I want then he will get some kind of reward, and I do believe that at least in Pan and Nikon's cases this lesson has carried over into bitework.

This exercises might be a little much for Viking's age though, but it's fun later on once the dog is more physically mature and/or has a bit more practice with the commands paired with the pass auf (though I kick the toy around so the dog is not jumping in the air, and neither of my dogs have been "spinners" that back up, spin, and hit the end of the line hard).


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## Skribbles (Jan 11, 2012)

For touching, I started out by using the back of my hand. Touch it to her nose, click and reward and after a bit added the word. Once she got the command, I'd hold my hand away from her nose and get her to touch it. From there, I'd stuck a post-it note on my hand and got her touching it. Then gradually move the post-it note to whatever I wanted her to touch. Slowly faded out the note after that. Worked great (albeit slow) other than not being able to get her to consistently use her nose for it... she always wants to slam her paw on it.


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