# puppy getting confused with commands. pls help



## neupane00 (Apr 10, 2008)

hey guys i dont expect much outta him cuz he is just 3.5 months old puppy. for about a week i taught him sit. anoher week i thought him "down".. and "shake paw".. now he is getting confused between all 3.. like when i tell him "sit".. he sometimes goes "down" and then back to "sit" position".. and immediately "down".. so in a way he is trying everything he knows to show me to get treat. i think he cant associate commands with actions. also he might be confused cuz sometimes he gets treat in sit position and sometimes in down position.. is this normal? will this go away with time? thanks a lot.


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## Cracker (May 25, 2009)

Yes, it's normal. In dog training jargon it's called "offering behaviours" and in science it means the cues/behaviours are not under stimulus control. Plain english..your pup doesn't know the CUE words yet and really wants to work for the treat so will offer as many behaviours as he can to try and get the right one. Smart eh? Each time you teach him something new, it will happen again, at least for a while. 

So. What you do here is ignore the down if you've cued the sit. If he sits when you've cued it, reward him. If he downs when you've cued it, reward him. Use a hand signal for sit, flat palm upwards raise arm from the thigh to the chest, keep it big and let him learn the movement. After you have a consistent sit with the signal, then you add the word "sit" just before you do the signal. 
For down you can use, flat palm down towards floor towards the thigh (orsome people "point" towards the floor..same idea. Make the signal clear to the pup, then add the cue just prior to the signal. Then you start making the hand signal smaller and smaller. Eventually (and I mean EVENTUALLY) you can just use the word and see if it works. If it doesn't work after that you just back up the hand signal again and keep working it. Dogs are more visual than they are language oriented so learning the cues is harder in the beginning.

You may also see, if you've taught the down from the sit (as in had him sit first and then lured him into a down) that the sit/down combo will happen a lot. Give it time and be sure to TIME your marker (yes!!!) for the sit BEFORE he slides down into the down. He'll get it. It may take YOU longer though..lol.

Keep practicing and be patient..he's still "learning how to learn".


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## TooneyDogs (Aug 6, 2007)

And, it takes 6-8 weeks of really consistent training for the pup to put it into long term memory. Even then, they have relapses......learning is not easy.


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## yappypappymom (Oct 22, 2009)

LOL, when I first began teaching Leif to do his tricks, he would kinda go through them ALL until he got the right one that I was specifically asking for. It was comical!!...Now that he is older, & is more certain of what to do, he will do the command perfectly...BUT, it did take LOTS of consistency from my end, &, when he "scrolled" through his bag of tricks, I never waivered & rewarded him for doing another trick instead (meaning that he only got treated when he landed on the correct one). Time & patience is really all that you need at this point, your pup is still very young, &, in time, I am sure these little speed bumps will be of no big issue. Just go slow, & introduce new tricks ONLY when the pup can do the current ones perfectly..I found that introducing too many new tricks too soon just was a recipe for "fail". (from MY end)


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## Maura (Mar 17, 2009)

This is why I don't teach the down before I am getting real solid sits with both hand signal and verbal. I also do not do "puppy push ups", having the dog sit, down, sit, down, I found it confuses the poor canine. I realize other people don't have a problem with the push ups, but I don't use them. Since I don't want to wait a long time between teaching different cues, I try to use cues that are very different. For instance, I'll work on sit, then when we've got the sit good at meal time, I start working on "wait" and the release word. A puppy or new dog is learning about the crate, pottying outside, what are chew toys, and so forth, so they are more involved in training than you may think.


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## lucidity (Nov 10, 2009)

I find that using hand gestures along with verbal cues help. Some dogs are more responsive to visual cues than verbal ones (like mine).


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## yappypappymom (Oct 22, 2009)

lucidity said:


> I find that using hand gestures along with verbal cues help. Some dogs are more responsive to visual cues than verbal ones (like mine).


Ohhhh...I concur - 100%!! Leif goes strictly off of hand signs as well...I may as well be saying "mashed potatoes" while giving the down command...since he has NO clue at to what mashed potatoes means(HUMAN words)..he goes by his "clue sign" instead...works WONDERS!!!


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## neupane00 (Apr 10, 2008)

oh wow. i didnt realize using hand signals help sooo much. just 1 day i am getting consistent behavior with using hand signals along with voice command. Almost 90% consistency as apposed to poor guy going thru all his bag of tricks. lol.. THank u very much guys.


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## lucidity (Nov 10, 2009)

yappypappymom said:


> Ohhhh...I concur - 100%!! Leif goes strictly off of hand signs as well...I may as well be saying "mashed potatoes" while giving the down command...since he has NO clue at to what mashed potatoes means(HUMAN words)..he goes by his "clue sign" instead...works WONDERS!!!


LOL, that is so cute haha!

No problem, Neupane. I think pups are just so fidgety sometimes that they don't really pay attention to what you're saying... it doesn't help that sometimes we pronounce the word differently, or say it in a different tone, which confuses them more, lol.


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## hulkamaniac (Feb 11, 2009)

I use hand signals with Zero as well and they seem to work great. I point at him if I want him to sit and point at the floor if I want "down". I slap my thigh if I want him to come to me. We haven't really worked on anything else yet, but we probably will in the future. Dogs are great at offering all kind of behaviors to try to get a treat. 

I was putting a pizza in the oven the other day when Zero comes from across the room and immediately runs up to me and sits. I looked at him and he looked at me, then the pizza, then me, then went into a down. Then he started staring at me again. He can be a manipulative little guy.


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## Maura (Mar 17, 2009)

All dogs learn visual cues faster than verbal. If you know this you can be consistent in your movements and train faster. Then, you chain the verbal with the visual.


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## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

Maura said:


> This is why I don't teach the down before I am getting real solid sits with both hand signal and verbal. I also do not do "puppy push ups", having the dog sit, down, sit, down, I found it confuses the poor canine. I realize other people don't have a problem with the push ups, but I don't use them. Since I don't want to wait a long time between teaching different cues, I try to use cues that are very different. For instance, I'll work on sit, then when we've got the sit good at meal time, I start working on "wait" and the release word. A puppy or new dog is learning about the crate, pottying outside, what are chew toys, and so forth, so they are more involved in training than you may think.


This is also why I don't train a down from a sit. I want a fold-back down; down doesn't mean sit THEN down. I do puppy pushups, but it's AFTER both are on stimulus control. After that, I figure it's more or less proofing, but I agree. I'm not a fan of doing puppy pushups before the commands/cues/whatever are on SC.


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## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

lucidity said:


> LOL, that is so cute haha!
> 
> No problem, Neupane. I think pups are just so fidgety sometimes that they don't really pay attention to what you're saying... it doesn't help that sometimes we pronounce the word differently, or say it in a different tone, which confuses them more, lol.


Oh, I agree! It's also hard to remember not to repeat yourself. "Sitsitsit" sounds a lot different than "sit", and a TON different than "sit down". I think this is why hand signals are easier, there are certainly variations but probably a lot less than verbal


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## lucidity (Nov 10, 2009)

LazyGRanch713 said:


> Oh, I agree! It's also hard to remember not to repeat yourself. "Sitsitsit" sounds a lot different than "sit", and a TON different than "sit down". I think this is why hand signals are easier, there are certainly variations but probably a lot less than verbal


Hahaha, I tend to repeat myself a lot too when Cadence doesn't do what I want him to!

I'm trying to teach him "bow" now but it's a hit and miss. I can't think of a good visual cue for it. Any ideas?


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## LiftBig315 (Jan 9, 2010)

I've gotten moose to work on hand signals...I still say the command, but I can just give the hand signal and he will do the command as well. It just takes practice, he is 3.5 months old too. 

I also use a whistle for the sit command. I will be using a whistle when I have him in the field, is the only reason I have introduced a whistle.


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