Commanding

When we first met Beano he was very stressed and seemed to have had very little training,  he paced his kennel area endlessly hoping to find a way out. The rescue centre had started with some basic commands but to be perfectly honest Beano was far too stressed to take much in.

As soon as we arrived back at the boat Steve launched straight in to training Beano and it immediately went tits up! He started with SIT but unfortunately swapped between SIT and SIT DOWN, which is a no no when training a dog, one simple command is best. Beano also does what is called a puppy sit, where the dog sits with a sideways slouch instead of sitting upright. This, according to Steve is incorrect and Steve was adamant that Beano learned to sit correctly. He spent many hours shouting and screaming at Beano who eventually decided all this noise wasn't of interest to him and he would wander off to sniff something interesting. Beano has quite limited movement in his back legs so I'm not sure if he can sit upright.

According to many experts a dog will want to please its owner and therefore will be willing to train. Unfortunately Beano wanted his previous owner so wasn't really interested in pleasing me or Steve.

I rarely made any effort to train Beano to start with, partly because Steve insisted he knew what he was doing and partly because Steve had wanted a dog whereas I didn't. He'd owned two Weimaraner's some years previously but I think his wife trained them.  I just tried to gain Beano's trust, mainly by feeding and walking him. 

I did teach him WAIT, if I wanted him to stop either to cross a road or to let someone pass us and then I taught him OVER when the road was clear. If we'd stopped to let someone walk past I still used WAIT,  but to carry on when not crossing a road I used WALK ON. Steve didnt approve of this command as he said it was for horses. I know it is but Beano doesn't know he's not a horse so I have carried on using it.

I use STAY, if I'm leaving him home and going out, he hates being left and looks very dejected when I say it. I do tell him he's a good boy when he follows instructions but he seems not to care, he also is disinterested if I tell him off for any reason.

He is currently laying on his back with all four legs in the air and enjoying having his tummy stroked. It's a dog's life!