# What commands can you teach a 3-4 month old puppy?



## baumgartml16 (Jun 19, 2011)

Never to early to work on come and recalls. I wish we had started earlier. Now we play a game where each of us has a handful of treats and we hide in different spots and excitedly call her and once she is heading to us we give the command "come". She gets the treat when she gets to us!  It is fun for all of us!


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

Hi Lynne,

The sky is the limit. Puppies are pretty much clean slates and total sponges.
They are very smart and learn really fast.

Good things to teach
go to your mat/bed
leave it
give
drop it
recall
focus
fetch
clean up (putting toys in a basket or toy box)
and any tricks you can think of.


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## Homer (Oct 12, 2011)

Homer is 4 months now and so far we have taught him to sit, shake, lay down, fetch, and kennel. I've been working on 'no jump' because it drives me crazy. I picked up a very helpful trick in teaching him not to jump up. When he jumps up on me I take a couple of quick shuffle steps toward him which knocks him down. I have only had to do this a handful of times and it seems to have been very effective because he hasn't really jumped up on me this past week. I'm trying to figure out how to transfer those results so he won't jump on other people/strangers. Here's a link to that training tip I found. Like I said, it's worked very well for us.

Stopping Your Puppy From Jumping - Jennifer Broome - Page 5


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

I started working with Cookie when she was 10 weeks old... she learned the basics, sit and down... then easily: roll over, heel, and "hit it" where she would wave her paw. She was my easiest dog to date(I have six after her). However, I see her granddaughter Luna in class and at almost 5 months, I am astounded at what LuckyPenny(here on the forum) has taught her. She sits AND stays AND does a fast recall to front. She follows her owner's body in heel position backing around a chair. She retrieves the dumbbell... The sky is the limit with a young, eager dog.. Go for it.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

A lot of trainers around here use a tether to train client's dogs. It can be a useful tool if the dog blows you off, to leave the tethered dog and ignore it. It is also helpful to teach a dog not to jump... if you approach and the dog starts to jump up, you walk away. Eventually a dog learns self control and learns it only gets attention from you if it sits quietly.. it takes time on the owner's part, but I am not big on knocking my dogs down. Also I believe if a dog is doing a behavior its' human doesn't like and then the human corrects it, it sets up a chain of bad behavior followed by correction and then what is the dog learning? I just started to work again with my OTCH trainer friend... she does something called a deference protocol(which I never did with goldens 2,3,4, and 5)but is really helping golden #6 get self control. And my granddog, Luna is also being trained by her.


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## mrmooseman (Aug 12, 2011)

moose knew sit, paw, other paw, lay, stay, wait, down, come, heal, and no begging.. but he is currently in his "teenage phase" and he doesn't listen to well to heal.. lol he rebels.


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## BriGuy (Aug 31, 2010)

solinvictus said:


> and any tricks you can think of.


I agree - I think teaching some "useless" commands is really important too, and I find that teaching a trick is a good break for me and Cookie from doing obedience type training. 

I remember getting a clicker right after I brought Cookie home and teaching her to roll a ball with her nose. Not too useful in the real world, but we had a good time working on it!


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

IMO, it is much easier to teach a dog/pup to do something vs not do something.

Instead of trying to teach the dog not to jump ask for an alternative behavior. It is hard for a dog to jump if it is in a down position. When you see the dog may start to jump up ask for the down instead. If this is done consistantly in place of the jump eventually the dog will do the down in those instances. 

Briguy I think your trick could have uses. It was the start of a nose touch. A nose touch can be used for many behaviors. 
Following your hand
Closing drawers and doors
rolling the ball
touching any object

I think it is an awesome trick.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Solinvictus, I totally agree... that was my point exactly. I watched the video and it really did not fly with me. The trainer said over and over, she would set the dog up to mess up so she could correct it...that is just not the place I want to be in with my dogs. I would rather anticipate the undesired behavior and have an acceptable alternative in place. Here is my personal example: One of the things I learned from showing in obedience is how to train the long sit exercise. Many of my friends/acquaintances have a dog that the minute they walk away, the dog lays down. It then becomes the exercise of telling dog to sit/stay, walk away,dog lays down, owner goes back and corrects it. It becomes very difficult to fix it. So when I train my dogs, I either put a dumbbell or small water bottle under the dog. Dog won't lay down (haven't had one do it yet) and it learns the long sit with no intervention....


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

> So when I train my dogs, I either put a dumbbell or small water bottle under the dog. Dog won't lay down (haven't had one do it yet) and it learns the long sit with no intervention....


But what you you do with a dog who pops up and STANDS there? >.<


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

My original dogs were trained to sit/stay and down/stay using an oppositional reflex(I would put the leash on the dog and pull while pressing the shoulder backwards). However, Cookie would pop up in Novice.. And do a one or three minute stand. I finally realized that my signal to tell her to stand (right hand above her head) looked like my stay signal(left hand sort of above her head). Once I figured that out and really stopped using my hand to tell her to stay there were no more problems. I believe my OTCH friend would tell you that using her deference protocol and food refusal, none of that will happen . I have to say that Emmie didn't grasp stay until last week and one week later, she totally gets it.


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## Luccagr (Feb 25, 2011)

I taught Lucca to sit, stay, come, lay, turn, crawl, high 5 at around 8 weeks-10 weeks. Then he learnt how to go to bed which is his crate. He also learnt the biscuit-on-top-and flip trick around the same time. Never too early to start teaching tricks. Good luck.


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## turtle66 (Feb 19, 2010)

We had a hard time to figure that one out...
So here is the list after reading 10 books and getting a lots of advices, I made a list of things I would do with Lilly...and I did

Here are the summation of things I tried to teach Lilly. We were actually also lucky to get her into puppy class with just 9 weeks...that helped a lot and was MUCH of fun + much of socialisation.

first time dog owner....
Heike

the pdf files attached were my worksheets throughout those weeks....I put them together while preparing for little Lilly 

Now 2 1/2 years old and almost perfect :


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## jluke (Nov 18, 2011)

*Agree and...*

I agree with all mentioned. I would add an easy and important command -- Watch me. I find this important for getting Maisie to focus her attention on me when training and in distracting environments.


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## Lucky Penny (Nov 13, 2011)

With a clicker, yummy treats, a tether ready to go, you can teach your pup anything. They are eager to work for you! And I am told if you do it right from the start, then you don't have to go back and fix it!


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