Favorite trick or command

My Border Collie has passed an HRC seasoned test and I love watching him retrieve. But my favorite command for him is a toss up between "place" and " Heel". Having control of my dog to either come straight to me or leave and go to a specific place is an absolute for me. Playing dead on "bang" is a crowd pleaser. What is the favorite thing you train your dogs to do?

bite

Keep the democrats away from the house

I never taught Taz any tricks except shake. I gave thought to teaching her to open the fridge and bring me a beer. When I got to the part about "what could go wrong"? I changed my mind.

My command for that is, "Who dat?" Instant ballistic dog with hackles up and hair standing on end. Many scheduled service men have run away.

"Get 'em" is my pup's cue.98# and dark chocolate coming at Mach 5 gets results real quick.They just don't know he just wants to play!

I used to give a LOT of talks to groups, always asked to bring Taz.I would start by telling all the things Taz was trained to do, inc bite work. Then I would sit Taz beside me, tell her to look around, and go "get one". She would jump up and damn near lick everyone to death, esp kids. She had a soft spot for kids, esp babies. She would lay beside any baby in a carrier the whole time I was speaking and was worthless for any demonstrations.

K-9 handlers never train their dogs to bite on the command "get em" because every dumb cop you get around is always telling yer dog to "get em" on another popo.

Yeah I could see where that would be a problem.No dumb cops here though.No K-9 handlers either.He does his best to please me,but I'm far from a handler.Just his buddy and he is mine!

I had a couple of bird dogs nearly 20 years ago that I had trained to the whistle. One sharp blast was Whoa, two sharp blasts, was release/resume or 'OK' by voice command, and a continuous trill was come. A friend of mine while I was at college was with me one day while I was letting them stretch their legs at a dog friendly park. He's only seen me mess with them in the yard, nearly at arm's reach. They were out 200 to 250 yards circling the grassy field, I suppose 'hunting', and he told me to see if they'd listen to me that far away. I took the whistle out, and hit it once really loud, and both dogs (probably 50 yards from one another) immediately skidded to a stop. They stood there for a minute, and then I hit them with two blasts, and they released and continued to run. A few minutes later my pal said, "OK, lets see them come." So, I hit the whistle once, and they froze again, and then trilled them all the way in.

I had a dozen people standing close by almost applauding, when they arrived and sat down next to me. The setter was a good dog, and worked singles as good as any I've seen, the pointer was the best all-around bird hunting dog on the planet as far as I was concerned. She'd dang near make a covey happen where none had existed before. Ain't nothing like a well trained dog, doing their job well!

I am no traitor et by any means but my most proud dog moment was when I could tell my cur dog to sit and I could walk out of site for several minutes and she would be right where I left her.

real easy "trick" to teach is hand signal commands. Just give the appropriate hand signal when you give the verbal command. Pretty soon the dog will obey on just hand signals.

i didn’t train this BUT he picked up on it and I think it’s neat. My Malinois pup, Axl, is 4 months old and I’ve been working with him on obedience. He will sit, lay down, comes to me, retrieves, kennels and is working on heeling. I work with him for 15-20 minutes in the morning, again in the afternoon and then again at night before bed. Whenever I’m training him I’m wearing shorts. So I was teaching him “Box” (German command for “kennel”) and about the third day into it he had a pretty good grasp of things, then the fourth day when I walked out of the door into the carport he looked at me and went into his kennel without me giving the command. Turns out he was keying on my clothing and my iPad. Every morning when I come outside wearing a suit and carrying my iPad I tell him “Box” and he would get in his kennel. Now when I let him out of his pen I can put on long pants and a sports coat and walk out the door and wherever he is when he sees me I don’t have to say a work he will go and get in his kennel.

Mals are funny smart.

When I was working with Taz I usually made her sit 15 yards before I got up to someone to check em. Some folks are just scared of dogs. On a few occasions I would get into something going south and think "I need Taz up here beside me"....and she would be there when I looked around to tell her to come. Already knew what I wanted and what to do.

be careful...he is smarter than you are.LOL

We taught my buddys duck dog to "kill". She would take a wounded duck by the head and shake her head until it was dead. It comes in handy sometimes and she only does it on command. Shes also managed to pop the head off of several ducks over the years.

Nice

Most people are amazed when I tell my GSP to load and he jumps in the back of my Z71 without touching anything but the bed.

Another simple task people are amazed by is dogs waiting for the ok before walking out a door. Most people I grew up with had dogs that would bolt at the slightest glimpse of daylight.

door rushing is one of my pet peeves of all time. Do not rush a door I open unless you want a whipping.

Good stories men. I like learning here, thanks

obey is my favorite when he does it.lol

Watch him, watch him. And if you act weird you get got.

I’ve only owned hounds dumb and smart. I’ve been fortunate to teach them the basics with ease. BUT had a real good buddy with a old English lab. He sent him to school for all the basics. He worked all the custom commands so to speak. If we were out messing around he would keep a soft cooler or easy open cooler in his truck. “Winston get me a beer” he’d be back with one shortly. He kept him inside the house. Wrapped a towel around the fridge handle. Same results inside. And almost always every third beer was Winston’s when he was outside . Crush the un opened can and lap it up. Won’t teach a hound that. Best handler/dog relationship I have ever seen.

We will be walking out the door. I'll stop and stare at him and say " What are you doing? You know we can't go anywhere without the Keys!" , He'll bolt back into the house and hunt around until he finds my key ring, then run to the truck.

They are more intelligent than we sometimes give them credit for...

Back when I was guiding duck hunters, I thought my black lab "Shadow" to get all the birds out of the mud boat and bring them to the cleaning room. He would run back and forth bringing one bird at a time. He would pile them up on the shelve for me. The people were amazed by this. The little female lab I had after Shadow would do an amazing trick. Cajun and I would walk down the wharf at the camp and I would drop a one dollar bill. I would make her pick it up and tell her to bring it to whoever was watching. I would tell them to put their hand out and she would drop 4 guarters in their hand. That was a good dog.

Sounds like she was something else...

The last doberman I had was smart as hell and easy to teach. Trained her to go to the end of the driveway and get the paper out of the box and bring it back. If I dropped something I could tell her to pick it up for me and she would no matter what it was. If it was food she wouldn't eat it till I told her to. She knew the names of several objects. I could tell her to get me the remote and she would bring it to me. I could give her something and let her to take it to her mama and she would go find my wife and give it to her. Dang dog lived for catching a frisby and I couldn't crank an atv without her jumping on it with me. She would sit in front of me with her butt on the seat and put her front paws on the handle bars and ride all day long. Crazy thing though she would get car sick as hell inside a vehicle. Always joked you could jingle car keys and she would puke. The doby I got after she passed must be a little slow. She can't do anything but catch a tennis ball and dig holes.