So you have a really nice Champion and JH dog

laying on your sofa.  You would really like a BBB dog but you don’t  “do obedience”?  You may have watched some of the traditional obedience breeds look impossibly perfect in the ring and have no idea how they get them to heel and pay attention like that.  Well relax, to simply get your dog qualified three times is probably easier and more fun than you think.

To begin with, just remember, that your dog only needs to learn six “behaviors”(skills) to put together a qualifying leg in Novice. Note that I say qualifying and not high scoring.  There is a huge difference in the type of training you would do to score above 195 and what we are talking about here.  Not everyone has the time or even the interest in making a high scoring dog.  There is no shame in that as long as your dog looks and acts like he is enjoying his time in the ring with you.

The behaviors your dog will need to know are:

Sit stay and down stay (for group exercises and

           the recall)

Stand stay (for the stand for exam exercise)

                Find heel position (moving)                   Recall exercise.      Sit at front.

                         Find heel position (sit at heel or “set up”)

The easiest way to start is with the sit stay.  You probably tried hard to teach your dog (lets call him “Gordie” NOT to sit in the breed ring. Now we want to teach Gordie to sit at your left side.  This is where every exercise starts so we need to teach him that it is a great place to be!  Start with a medium length leash and either a buckle or training collar. Have some VERY small soft treats available and put one in your left hand, have him follow the treat until he is on your left side facing the same way you are.  Hold the treat right above his head and  then go slightly backwards with it.  Gordie should sit, tell him YES and give him the treat.  This position is where most exercises start

And we call it “set up” or “place”.  Try this a few times and see if He starts to try to get there as soon as he sees the cookie coming. This is what I call  living room training and you can do some of these

when you just have a few minutes to kill.  This can be done with out blocking out hours of training time each week.  Three or four minutes twice a day 4-5 days a week adds up fast. 

When Gordie is getting the hang of this and coming to set up pretty

quickly, you can add the stay.  Just step in front (toes to toes) and tell him to stay by the verbal command and the signal with the left hand in front of his nose.  (When I first start this, I usually add an actual touch

of the closed fingers on the nose, softly and briefly)Very softly keep repeating the stay command. He will either attempt to leave or try to lay down. If he lays down use your treat above his head to get him back in the sit and only give him the treat when he actually sits. Make sure to use the position word  “SIT”.  If he tries to leave just go back and set up and try again, when he learns that he can’t leave he won’t keep trying. Keep him stationary for short durations to start(about 30 seconds) and gradually add more distance and time ONLY when you are successful EVERY TIME up close.

Next time we will add the down stay.  Pat, Ann and I will be demonstrating the “find heel” game at the Nodrog picnic in July.  Just what all of you who qualify on everything BUT the off leash heeling in Novice need to teach your dog.  It is easy, fun and really helps Gordie learn to fix his own mistakes in the ring.