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