Isaac’s Vocabulary

Well, vocabulary may not be the right word, but it’s close enough.  I was talking to a friend the other day who has an eight month old puppy he is training (she is a pet, not a service dog) and he told me he has ten commands he is teaching her and that it’s been hard work.  I’m not sure if he is trying to teach all ten commands at once or not.  I’m thinking it would work best to train just one or two commands at a time, then move on to the next one once the dog is good at those.

So now I’m trying to think of how many commands Isaac knows.  He knows “sit,” “down,”, “stay” and “come,” of course. 

He knows “heel,” although he has a strong tendency to walk a bit ahead of me, which is a problem.  We’re working on it. 

We’re also working on “quiet” right now.  When he wants attention and isn’t getting it, he sometimes barks. 

Then, he knows “get meds” and “get lights” (turn lights on).  He knows “get it,” which means to pick up whatever I’m pointing at and give it to me.  He knows “give it.”  He knows “leave it” and fortunately does that one well. 

He knows “go in,” which means go in his crate, and “go under,” which means go under the table at a restaurant (which he does not particularly like doing, he prefers to be where he can watch everything that’s going on). 

He knows “load” and “unload,” which means get in/out of the car.  

He knows “circle,” which means to circle closely around me, like making sure I have space around me and keeping people from getting too close.  He knows “front,” which means to stand in front of me, which is what he does if I’m standing at a counter paying for something, things like that.  

He knows “OK,” which basically means to go ahead, like when I put his food down he waits until I say “OK” to start eating and when I open the door he waits until I say “OK” to go out.  

He knows “watch me,” which means he watches me and pays attention.  I use that when we are out and he’s getting distracted by stuff and not paying attention to what he’s supposed to be doing.  

Those might be all right now.  There are some other commands I want to teach him in the future, but first I want to work on “heel” and “quiet” some more.