# goals @ 3 months (Obedience)



## goldlover68 (Jun 17, 2013)

I have never heard any of these commands, we do obedience training as part of our Field Training? I teach our young dogs, Sit (means sit stay), down (means down stay), heel, here, drop, hold ....

My trainers have always said one word commands are best....we teach these at 12wks...and beyond! Formal field training will not start until 6mo at the earliest!


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

He's a baby. Make sure you're not cheating him out of his puppy-hood. It sounds pretty intense and that can lead to burn out later on. Make sure there's a good healthy balance with just goofy, silly puppiness.


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## Titan1 (Jan 19, 2010)

You are doing just fine.. there will always be others from the litter doing different things.. You need to do what you are comfortable with...The only other things to start early is teaching attention. I know when I start out a youngster I try to introduce them to all the fields I want to play in.. I did puppy agility which is very low key and getting confidence to go through a tunnel . builds great teamwork skills..ect... I would teach them the pot and spins and turns for rear end awareness... Jodie has posted some of Phoenix doing those early on ..(the Sunfire facebook page..)..there is no pressure from me in the beginning and teaching becomes a fun time for the two of us..


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

I completely agree with Titan1. Teaching rear-end and body awareness, beginning focus work and a love of learning are my goals with youngsters.

The tuck-sit, fold-back down, kick-back stand and other stationary positions are great - pot work, ladder work, spins and the beginnings of whatever you enjoy rewarding and playing with - tug, retrieving, catch me if you can, and of course recalls. And above all a love of working/playing and being with you

Enjoy, get to know each other.

BTW: I have Faelan, Towhee & Brady on the Sunfire page. There is truly a wealth of top notch ideas and trainers on the page and you will get to watch others bringing up their puppies.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I think it really depends on you and your experience.... my feeling is the best thing to do is TEACH as much as you can the right way the first time. And that period of time before 4-5 months is the best time to build a foundation for training everything in obedience. And most people are building not just for novice obedience, but going ahead and teaching advanced obedience as well. 

So getting started as you are - is awesome. Your pup needs to know a straight tucked sit in heel position. He needs to know how to go down with the front end first vs rear end (this is ideal later on for open drop on recalls and utility signals). And it is awesome you are working on watches too - again a very important foundation tool. 

Other things you could be introducing are getting sits and downs at a distance - this builds into your go-out sits and drop on recall downs. 

Teach your pup to touch - some people train the nose touch and others train the dogs to run up and paw targets. This touch part begins close up and right front of a target (big binder clips are awesome). And you will build distance as your pup grows up. By the time your pup is 4-5 months old, he should be able to do full distance go-outs. 

There's games you can play to build directed jumping. I have somebody teaching me now who I wish I started earlier with Bertie. Same game with tossing treats forward between the bar and high jump and signaling/calling the jump/and tossing treats as the pup comes back. 

Puppies shouldn't be jumping until much older, but you can start building the jumps early with 2" boards at first and up to 12" boards until over a year and you can build your higher jumps closer to two. 

I started training high jumps with Jacks at two, and my huge regret was not starting early with him. He had zero confidence even jumping low jumps. Bertie is already doing 20/40 with his jumps and after we do his OFA's in a couple months, he will be jumping full height easily. 

And heeling takes a while to shape and build so never to early to start building. For training heel to puppies and young dogs, you can either do the "choose to heel" exercise where you start walking and immediately jackpot when the pup clues in to you and actually shows the energy and position that you want. Others (what I prefer) start training heel by luring and rewarding. 

You can start teaching take/hold/give with dumbbells. Or other objects. Ideally, you want the pup reaching up and taking the dumbbell from you before you start moving to the next step (dumbbell retrieve from chair, dumbbell retrieve from floor, placed dumbbell further away, etc). 

If you are serious about going very far in obedience - this time right now is huge for getting started on all of these things and more. It's probably best to do so with the guidance of somebody who has trained and titled through top levels - because you will want to introduce higher level stuff early. But you can look up Janice Gun, Betsy Scapecio (sp), Bridget Carlsen, and Adele Yunck.

Adele has a new puppy (border terrier) and has been posting videos on youtube with her introducing all of the stuff to this puppy. <- You can go to her website northfielddogtraining.com to find links to her videos. 

Good luck - and biggest thing is keeping this in the perspective that you are playing with your puppy. These GAMES you play with your pup. It should be fun and a huge deal. You want that pup's face just lighting up when he sees you pulling out the training bag. Keep training sessions short and rewarding for your puppy. Try to stop on a high note vs giving up after a struggle. Meaning that if he's not getting something, take a step back to something he can handle and quit with praise and rewards.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

I have to say I don't think it's terribly important to teach puppies all the "advanced" exercises like go-outs, articles, and whatnot. I don't see how you can teach them to do it properly in that small time frame, so why would you teach it at all? There are TONS of things so important to a good foundation, which you need for the lifetime of the dog. 

I made a training checklist for Bally as he grew up, with certain age milestones and the tasks I wanted him to know or experience within that timeframe. 
Here is my list of things puppy should experience before 4 months of age:
Follow food
Spin & Twist
Sit - Down - Stand...
Back up (follow food backwards)
Bishop (nose bridge)
Through (go through legs)
Touch (palm of hand)
Speak
Clicker shaping w/ objects
Pot/Brick work
Get in
Reverse (back up counterclockwise around handler)
Cross (weave through legs)
Tug
Wobble Board
Get it name game
Target recalls w/ two people
Stay
Off leash nature walks, food condition to "here"

Field stuff:
water/swimming
duck (dead, frozen, live)
pheasant
pigeon (dead & alive)
chukker (dead & alive)
decoys in water
silhouettes on land
holding blinds
marks from a gunner
food bowl casting


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Potty outside


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

K9-Design said:


> I don't see how you can teach them to do it properly in that small time frame....


 You wouldn't be teaching how to do ring ready exercises. You would be teaching the foundation steps and building on them. Some of the things I listed take a very long time to progressively build step by step. 

I probably went a little nuts listing off all the stuff you could be getting a start on right now - if only to share what people (who I look up to) do with their own dogs when they are puppies.


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## Tennyson (Mar 26, 2011)

I was enthralled with Deaglan ringing the bells to go out at 3 months.


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## Eowyn (Aug 29, 2013)

Loisiana said:


> Potty outside


Ha Ha. Yeah, that one is helpful.


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## TheZ's (Jun 13, 2011)

I'm interested in the responses to this question even though at 9 1/2 months Gracie is well past the stage you're asking about. The Sunfire pups do seem to be very quick and eager learners and many go to very experienced owners. It's really amazing to see what some of them can accomplish so quickly. I try to keep some perspective on it but do wish I'd done more when Gracie was still the eager puppy. I'm afraid we're into the adolescent stage now - not always so eager to please.


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