NORTHWEST K9 COMMON SENSE TRAINING While each team and situation varies, I more often than not find myself recommending that we teach the more formal command and behavior first, and when that is mastered by the handler and the dog, we can consider teaching the less formal, and more relaxed version of the associated behaviors. Black-tie or Casual? Teaching Formal and Informal Obedience Text and photos Copyright 2005 Moc Klinkam; all rights reserved. Whether your dog is being trained for formal competitive obedience, or for day-to-day "good citizen" behaviors, there are a number of reasons why we might teach one command for a more formal, stylized obedience, and another for informal, less rigorous behaviors. FORMAL VS INFORMAL HEELING The "Heel" command is an excellent example. When commanded to Heel, the dog is expected to maintain correct position at the handler's left, with its right shoulder adjacent to the handler's left knee. The dog may not move out of position either toward the handler, away from the handler, or walk either slightly ahead or behind correct position. Most importantly, the dog under the Heel command may not forge or pull on the lead. The lead must remain slack and without any tension. A good example of a crowded area when the formal "Heel" is advisable. Training the highly focused Schutzhund "Fuss" Even more stylized than the formal "Heel" is the Schutzhund-style "Fuss" where it is common to see the competitors trained to maintain constant focus on the handler throughout the heeling pattern, including turns and sits. Formal heeling should be reserved for when precise heeling is required, such as when navigating a stretch of crowded public sidewalk, or in service deployment or formal competition. Formal heeling with "zero tolerance" for deviation from the positional requirements should not be commanded nor required for overly long distances. This is too much to expect of the dog! A good way to rapidly diminish the energy and enthusiasm of the formal heel is to excessively demand that the dog perform it beyond its physical or mental abilities. Whenever possible, it's always preferable to vary your extended walking with periodic sessions of both formal and informal heeling. This is why we also teach the more informal "Walk With Me" command. This more informal "strolling" command is taught after the formal heel is mastered, so that the dog has already been taught and clearly understands that it may not pull on the lead. The "Walk With Me" command instructs the dog to walk at a pace matching the handler's, on whatever length of lead is provided by the handler. When under the "Walk With Me" command, the handler may allow the dog to walk informally to the handler's left or right, or perhaps slightly ahead of the handler on a 6' lead, or even 15 or 20 feet ahead on a longue line. The key to this command is that regardless of the length of lead provided by the handler, the dog ambulates in a forward direction in a controlled fashion without pulling on the lead. An informal Sunday "Walk With Me" on a deserted downtown sidewalk. The "Walk With Me" command is not a release command. It should not signal to the dog that it is a "free dog." Rather, the "Walk With Me" command means "I now give you permission to continue walking on "X" length of lead under obedience and without pulling." This is the appropriate command to use when on leisurely walks with your dog in public areas with minimal traffic, or on hiking trails, pathways, and the like in less potentially distracting environments. The informal "Down" requires the dog to lay down and remain in that supine position, but in a more relaxed fashion. THE "DOWN" Another example are the commands associated with the dog lowering itself to the floor or ground. The "Down" or "Lay Down" command is the more informal command, instructing the dog to lay down with its full body weight meeting the ground; there are no requirements for leg or belly positioning, and the dog may lay down on its stomach or on its side. As in all obedience commands, when taught correctly, "Down" or "Lay Down" explicitly communicates to the dog that it must maintain its position laying on the ground until commanded otherwise. The "Down" command is used far more often in day-to-day obedience, instructing the dog to immediately lower itself to the ground in whatever position it may ultimately take, such as "Lay Down" next to the sofa while watching a video. The "Platz" command, such as we see in formal Schutzhund obedience, is the formal command, requiring the dog to immediately lower its belly to the ground, with front legs extended straight forward, the rear legs tucked beneath the dog's hindquarters, and the dog maintaining a forward focus, with the result being the dog maintains a formal, immovable Sphinx-like position until commanded otherwise. The "Platz" command should be reserved for formal situations when a precise and stylized position is required, such as in formal obedience competition or when environmental conditions require a lightning-fast "hit the deck" with an unwavering full body tuck. The physical effort of maintaining the "Platz" position is typically much greater than for a more relaxed "Lay Down" position, and for this reason, the dog should not be expected or required to maintain the formal, stylized "Platz" position for extended periods of time. The formal "Platz" required for the down out of motion in Schutzhund obedience Beginning to shape the formal "Hier" with the fundamental sit. THE RECALL Recalls are another area where it may be useful to employ two commands, one informal and the other formal. For example, the informal command "Come" instructs the dog to return immediately to the handler and maintain a degree of proximity determined by the handler. Depending on the handler's preferences, the command "Come" may mean return immediately to me and remain within 5 feet of wherever I am; or it may mean return immediately to me and await a secondary command; or it may simply mean "come into this room." While the command "Come" is considered "informal," this does not mean that the requirement for the dog's immediate responsiveness to the command is in any way diminished. Come always means just that -- return to me now -- and the handler determines what subsequent behaviors, if any, are then chained to this generalized recall command. An example of an alternate formal recall command would be "Hier." When taught correctly, this highly structured recall requires that the dog immediately return at full speed to the handler, halt just ahead of the handler and perform an immediate and correct sit with upward focus on the handler. While this formal recall command is primarily reserved for competitive obedience settings such as in Schutzhund, it is also a highly advantageous command and potentially life-saving skill when the environment requires the dog's immediate return, bullet-proof sit, and total focus on the handler despite environmental distractions or stressors. The formal recall requires immediate sit as close as possible to the handler without touching and upward focus. Advancing to the formal recall at distance. In those situations where a dog has developed poor recall behaviors (ie, endless rounds of "keep away"), and the owner has established a history of using the "Come" command in all manner of inconsistent ways with increasingly dismal results ("Brinkly come, come here Brinkly, Brinkly I said come come come....."), I will typically recommend that we abandon altogether that now utterly useless word "Come" and teach instead the formal recall with the "Hier" command. No need wasting precious training time by trying to "un-do" the dog's habituated disregard of the formerly over-used and insufficiently reinforced "Come" command. The dog that is already engaging in keep-away or other forms of "blowing off" the handler will typically be well-served with the introduction of formal obedience commands and required, explicit behaviors. Once the dog has mastered those formalities, then the dog may earn the privilege of learning and performing less formalized obedience behaviors in which the dog is granted some degree of leniency as to body posture and positioning. THE RETRIEVE Another area where we might teach two levels of performance is the retrieve. If you want Brinkly to bring the Jolly Ball back to you for another round of his favorite game, associating the informal "Fetch!" command with this activity would be an appropriate instruction. By introducing and repeatedly commanding "Fetch!" each time you play Jolly Ball with your dog, you are associating that word with your dog's unstructured dash after it and bringing it back (maybe!) in whatever fashion suits the dog; this is supposed to be fun! Remember though, that if you have been using the command "Fetch" to habituate your dog to run willy nilly after a ball, return in some inconsistent zig-zag fashion, and drop the ball whenever and wherever the dog decides to stop mouthing and chewing on it, then if you wish to begin teaching the formal retrieve, the very last word you would want to use is "Fetch." You'll only be wasting precious team resources by trying to "re-train" a whole new meaning for the command "Fetch." Avoid any appearance of co-mingling the informality of an already well-established playful and "free form" fetch with the precision and exactness required of both handler and dog in the retrieve for performance or competition. A highly stylized and formal retrieve requires that you restrict your use of the associated command to performance-based teaching, training, and proofing only. When your goal is competitive obedience that involves a formal retrieve, then you must teach your dog a different, formal retrieve command, such as "Brings," and build that new exercise from the ground up by incrementally chaining all of the required behaviors to create the finished product. From the very first time you utter your formal retrieve command, such as "Brings!", you should have an explicit training plan in place. Incrementally teach your dog through precise behavioral chaining. For example, when used in Schutzhund I obedience, the "Brings!" command initiates a series of complex and highly stylized behaviors: run out in a straight line, immediately pick up and correctly grip the thrown dumbbell in the mouth, turn on a dime, immediately return to the handler, immediately sit facing the handler, and calmly present the dumbbell upward for the formal release command. The formal Schutzhund retrieve over the hurdle. A perfect example of the informal playtime "Fetch!" that you don't want to see replicated on the competition field! While we rarely have to "teach" a naturally retrieving dog how to run after a desired object and bring it back for another exciting round of chase and catch, the point of using the "Fetch" or other informal command for informal retrieving is that you do not want to be mixing apples and oranges if your intent is to also someday build a formal, competitive retrieve. One is a casual retrieve for playtime, the other is a formal and stylized retrieve for performance or competition. Apply an informal command and more relaxed requirements to the former, and teach a formal command and highly refined requirements to the latter. After all, while the same retrieve, hunt, and play drives may be invoked in both scenarios, you'll want your formal retrieve to be a very different picture than running pellmell after a ball in your backyard! SUMMARY The above are different examples of training scenarios that encourage us to consider teaching two levels of obedience -- one highly formal, and the other somewhat less so. Different environments demand varying degrees of obedience, whether highly structured or less rigorous. Whether you are training a formal command or an informal command and the associated behaviors, the training strategy remains the same: first determine your training plan and strategy, then teach, train, and proof the desired behaviors in small, incremental steps oriented entirely to success. While each team and situation varies, for most dogs I recommend that we teach the more formal commands and behaviors first, and when those are mastered by the handler and the dog, we can consider teaching the less formal and more relaxed versions of the associated behaviors. This approach reflects my professional emphasis on teaching the human part of the team, so that the handler learns highly consistent and reliable handling skills right from the start. Advanced handler skills and competence are more readily learned and applied when you are first taught how to maintain your own highly formal and structured command presence. Your dog then has the impeccable obedience model -- you -- upon which to base and mirror his or her own equally stellar obedience behaviors. You'll find additional training articles in the NorthWest K9 Reading Room. Information about private team training programs is found in our Client Training department.

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