What a cute shepard. Is he full breed? We had three shapeard when I was growing up. Very smart dogs.

No he is German shepherd/ Corgi mix. You can definantly see the shepherd though huh?! You can see the corgi in his legs. He is also really stocky looking. He defiantly has the personality of a shepherd. He is VERY protective of his yard but is never ever mean about it. He acts like he is all tough but then chickens out LOL Yes he is very smart, he learned to sit in 1 day and to lay down in 2 days. He also tries to manipulate the treat giving. LOL Let me explain, i accidently started a pattern where when i was going to give him a treat i would tell him to sit, then he would sit, then i would say "lay down" and he would lay down and i gave him the treat. Well now i tell him to sit and he half sits and then lays down right away. LOL So i have tried to make sure i don't do that anymore. I have just been doing sit or lay down separately and giving him the treat. I want to teach him to stay but have no idea how to even go about it. Any ideas?

-- Edited by Erica at 22:14, 2005-04-05

awww!

Now that's cute! What a combo GSD & Corgi.

I love his ears.

Very pretty dog.  I love the mixture.

I once lived next door to a couple whose dog was a pitbull/daschund mix.  If you can imagine: pit face/daschund body. She was smart as a whip. They loved her very very deeply.  Quite frankly they thought the world revolved around her.  They would get upset about not getting one of her litter mates.  "Isn't she unique. We know there is not another dog like her", they would say. 

I thought it was sweet. They would go on and on about her and make her do tricks. She was indeed very very very smart.  She did the same think would anticipate the trick and perform prior to asking in order to get a treat.  She also talked upon command which I thought was very very deep.

My other neighbor had a cat that could open the front door with her front paws and also would tap the water fountain in order to get a drink.  I stopped going over there because it was too uncanny.

It is strange but animals really know a lot more than people give them credit for. 

 

The way I usually start with the stay command is to have to dog on lead in a sit in the heel position.  I use both vocal & hand signal.  Stay and a sharp short movement towards the nose with my open right hand.  Then take one step forward turn & face your dog.  Hold the end of the leash with your left hand with your right hand holding on the leash mid-way.  If the dog starts to get up you can quickly using your right hand give a correction and put him back into a sit.   When this is going pretty consistently well then you can work on taking a couple of steps forward - one word of advice tho - when you have put the dog on a stay ALWAYS leave with your right foot.  They will eventually associate your leaving with the right foot as a stay and your leaving with the left foot as a heel.  Eventually you will be able to go out to the end of your lead and from there you can advance on to training off-lead, again in small increments.  When you return to your dog, at any of the levels, he should stay in the position he was in for the stay - be it a sit or a down.  When you decide the exercise is over tell him heel & walk off 1-2 steps.  This is important so that in a crucial situation the dog knows to stay until you can put a lead on him and he doesn't bound off upon your return.  Let me know if you have any questions.