How to teach a dog to stay put and bark on whistle command?

Here I go again pretty off topic, but the dog and hunting forums are full of people that are...lets say less than scientific about their approaches. I know we have some good trainers here, both pro and amatuer, so here goes:

He's pretty good at coming to get his treat with 2 short blasts. I want to teach him to freeze where he is and bark up a storm when he hears one long blast. (in case i need to find him or he is about to get hit by a bus or whatever).

We are making progress on "stay" and "speak," which I assume he'll need to master first. But where to go from there?

I'm not sure...

You seem to have everything 'down pat' that I have my wife trained to do...:rofl:

(Although she can 'bark' at me pretty well without a command!):gah:

Stay armed...stay safe!

HA HA Ret, Mine has also mastered the "Spend" command, she knows that one so well that I only said it once when we were first married and she hasen't stopped!

I teach my dogs "sit" command and it also works as a de facto "stay" (the dog cannot go anywhere if it is on a "sit"). After you are sure the dog has a good grasp of "sit" with a verbal then begin to incorporate a whistle with the verbal command to "sit" ( I like to use one long blast for "sit", but it is up to you to decide what will work best). You need to rember that dogs are very sensitve to space and distance and once you teach them something at say 5 feet then you have to SLOWLY increase the distance to say 7 feet then 10 feet than 12 feet ect.... Some trainers I know have had very good results using a small mat on the ground and teaching the dog to stay on the mat. As far as the "speak" command, I am sure you could do the exact same thing in that once the dog knows a verbal command for "speak" then you cuold begin to work in a whistle command as well.

I do it pretty much the same way Gumbo does... but why use a whistle?

Generally a blast from a whistle will carry further than the human voice, in bad weather conditions like wind, heavy fog, ect... A whistle can be used to communicate commands from much greater distance than voice, but you still need to maintain line of sight if at all posible. The dog really needs to be able to see the handler and vice versa.

I would recommend a high quality PLASTIC whistle. In very cold temps, a metal whistle can be painful on the lips.

But remember work only on very short distance in the begining, if the dog seems confused or is not responding well stop and greatly decrease the distance or work on something the dog already knows well. End each training session on a positive note with the dog having done the exercise very well and recieving lots of praise. Several short training sessions that end well are much better than one long session where dog and handler are frustrated and confused. Remeber to always set the dog up to succeed.

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Originally Posted by 7mm Gumbo

Generally a blast from a whistle will carry further than the human voice, in bad weather conditions like wind, heavy fog, ect...

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Yep, that was my thinking. I noticed that when he is far away and there are cars driving or kids playing, if I call him loud enough for him to hear me it woulnds like I am yelling at him and he doesn't want to come. Glad I turned to the whistle and the whistle "come" command is the one cammand that ALWAYS gets him a treat. When he ran out of the house and I didn't know where he went, I just tooted and he came running from a neighbors' yard a couple doors down.

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I would recommend a high quality PLASTIC whistle. In very cold temps, a metal whistle can be painful on the lips.

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Don't tell me you fell for liberal scare tactics based on junk science. Darn liberals just want make money on their plastic whistle stock. Why, I bet I can touch my tongue to this flagpole right here....oww, oww, hep, i'm thtuck. :biggrin:

OK, makes sense. My bird dogs knew two whistle commands, stay and come.
But voice commands were the primary method. I didnt want a dog trained only to a whistle because I tend to forget to bring a whistle along.

:image035:Why bother with a whistle? Both my dogs can hear celophane crinkle in my jacket pocket at 100 yards in high wind. There has GOT to be some value there. :image035:

Get the book,"Water Dog" and do as it says. Works for me every time unless the dog is an idiot.
Remeber, it costs just as much to feed an idiot dog as a good dog!