# Best Practices: Commands



## Ryan Cusack (Jan 19, 2009)

I'm having a ton of fun with my pup so far. We're getting into commands for simple stuff at home now. He's great at staying in a sit, but I refuse to the use the "stay" command. Never tried this before, but I like the approach so far. I continue to reinforce "sit" and then release him with an "ok" command.

I'd love to hear your variations of commands and what situations you apply them to. The reason I'm placing this in the SAR forum is that's the direction I plan on working this dog.

Thanks!


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## Tom Moorcroft (Aug 27, 2008)

I use whatever works best and is clearest for the dog I'm working. We work in disaster search and rescue. Our foundation work on direction and control is done using platforms setup in a baseball diamond pattern. My commands sound something like this: Forward, hup, sit, good boy, stay. Go right, hup, sit, good boy, stay. Now I guess the good boy and stay are not necessary, but adding those made the exercise crystal clear for my dog and stopped him from acting like a nut job.

I like the idea of sit, and that's exactly what it means sit and don't move until I say something else, but it just wasn't that important to me. I opted instead to have a conversation with him that supported our working relationship. Could I do that and still use less commands, probably, but that's what worked for us at the time and continues to. It could be my lack of training skill or a hyper Mal or whatever. Heck most of the folks I know use the term "go out" instead of forward (at least my English speaking friends); I never understood this because "out" means let go of whatever's in your mouth. I think it's about clarity of communication. I talk a lot and during tests (and probably real life deployments) use that as a stress reliever. The less stress I have, the less stress my dog needs to deal with, and the better the chances he can perform at his best.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

AKC obedience compitetion uses the stay command, Schutzhund does not.
In everyday life I just give a "wait" command IF I haven't given a previous "sit". "down" command. My dogs also know that when I hold up my index finger it means stay (unless I point to the ground with it).
You can use any word you decide on as long as it's consistantly connected to a behaviour. 
One guy at club uses the word "post" for a stand command. I know one person that uses the word "popcorn" as a release command. The dogs don't care! ;-)


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

Ryan Cusack said:


> I'm having a ton of fun with my pup so far. We're getting into commands for simple stuff at home now. He's great at staying in a sit, but I refuse to the use the "stay" command. Never tried this before, but I like the approach so far. I continue to reinforce "sit" and then release him with an "ok" command.
> 
> I'd love to hear your variations of commands and what situations you apply them to. The reason I'm placing this in the SAR forum is that's the direction I plan on working this dog.
> 
> Thanks!



I teach the dog that every cue has duration - "sit" means sit until I release you or tell you to do something else. Some behaviors have their own end. Close the door ends when the door is closed. Jump ends when the dog lands, etc.

I'd NOT use "ok" as a release. Dogs like to listen in for you to say "ok" in conversation and choose to release themselves from the behavior. I use "Yes!" and "Thank you" as release and marker.


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## Matthew Grubb (Nov 16, 2007)

Clear communication…. Sit means sit and don’t move. If I leave my dog in a sit and give a “stay”….. then he lays down….. is he wrong?? Not really… he stayed. O


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## Ryan Cusack (Jan 19, 2009)

Ok, to add another variable... hand signals connected with commands. Obviously you want something distinct and use it consistently. What are some of your favorites? Any horror stories?


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

Ryan Cusack said:


> Ok, to add another variable... hand signals connected with commands. Obviously you want something distinct and use it consistently. What are some of your favorites? Any horror stories?


We have an obedience exam that goes with our search exams. We use hand signals due to the fact that search sites may be noisy or windy and dogs learn well from body signals.

I taught every formal ob command with a hand signal. (we can be asked to do our ob exam with hand signals only). What I learned was that my dog was really learning from my signals, more than my voice commands. Asking the dog to do the whole ob exam WITHOUT hand signals (voice only) would be MORE difficult than asking them to do it with hand signals only.

When I realized this I started to mix things up and use voice only sometimes and make sure he understood them (like the turn your back to the dog and give voice commands for example)

When choosing hand signals I just used the ones I saw other handler's in my area use for their dogs. In the end I did not like them and wish I had chosen differently. My dog was an anticipator and many of the signals I had chosen started off looking the same at the beginging of the movement, leading the dog to guess(often wrong) from my begining movement what I wanted. This was especially true when giving hand signals from a distance. I found it interesting how poorly my dog sees at a distance so signals must be big, and easily distinguishable.

Ahhh the lessons we get to learn with our first working dogs! :-D


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## Mo Earle (Mar 1, 2008)

It is all dependant on what you want to do with Your dog-and how you will be consistent in communicating with your dog- I do use a stay command, mainly because I like the "sport venues"- FR, ASR, PSA etc...
but with the dogs I compete with in the sport venues, I do not use Hand commands- because decoys will try to confuse your dog by giving it a stop or down hand command[-X...that can cost you some points- for my other dogs- they were taught hand commands also...
as far as the actual language you use, the dog doesn't care- as long as you are consistent-they really don't speak english, french, or german, or czech, or all if you mix them up or in Terry's case-football...but they do understand what we are asking them to do- wether they complete the task or not-that is another topic.


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

My cadaver dog was trained similar to working a duck dog. A whistle meant stop/look at me. I'd direct with either voice or hand signals. right arm - go right, left arm - go left, etc. we could cover large areas in shorter time. 

DFrost


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