Puppy training tips!

[Lollipop29]

Recently got a mini dachshund, he'll be 14 weeks on Friday, he can sit, fetch and bring his toys back, and frequently goes toilet in the garden, only doing 2/3 pees on his pad next to the back door a day.
Just wondering how anybody taught their puppy to do paw, lie down and to stay?
I've read on google how to do it but there's so many different answers just wondering which way worked best for you and your puppy.
Thanks

Hi, congratulations on your new daxie, gorgeous dogs!

I am a first time dog owner of a pup of 7 months, so complete newbie at all things training (this is my disclaimer)! Much of our training was done via google too.

Re down, I admit I used a mixture of lure and bridging my leg for her to go under, before re-inforcing the word down. I know there is a school of thought that says luring is the wrong way, and that the key objective of a good down should be, for example, in emergency situations where there you are recalling a dog and need a sharp down to avoid a collision/road etc. I do get this completely, but caveat with this isn't great for all breeds (especially those with short legs/low centre of gravity), as teaching a pup to stop dead from full pelter running can be detrimental to their limbs, so choose the right time when you teach it from a running position that's so different from sit.

I've given up trying to teaching her her to paw/high five. She just topples over

Try
101 Dog training tricks by Kyra Sundance

Your pup will soon doing "roll over" "bow" for a treat or "speak" on command.
Everything is easily explained with pictures, commands and hand signals. It has a trouble shooting list with every trick to help you out. Just be careful as not all tricks are suitable for your daxie!
Have fun!

Paw: I held the treat in my closed fist and only opened it once he pawed at it with his paw. Once he repeated that loads of times, I started to hold one treat in a closed fist but give him a different one from my other hand when he pawed me. I repeated this then started to say the word "paw". Once we did that a few times, I stopped holding the treat in my closed fist and progressed to just touching, then shaking his paw.

Lie down: This was one of his first 'tricks'. I got him used to a clicker and then just sat with a treat and waited. Within a couple of minutes of trying to figure out what released the treat, he gave up and lay down. I clicked and treated him. We started again. It literally took him 4 repeats of this to figure out the lie down was what worked. I then just added the word "lie down" in as he did it. He learned this in less than 10 minutes, so was a very effective way of him learning.

Stay: I would get him to sit, hold my hand up and say "stay." Then, immediately, I would treat him. I repeated this loads, each time added a micro pause more after "stay" before he got the treat. Once he would wait for about 30 seconds, I started to take a tiny step away from him too. We just lengthened that. This has been the hardest for him to learn and is still a work in progress but he will stay put for about a minute with me out the room, before giving up!

All the basic approaches work:

• lure the dog into the position you want using a treat or some other thing he wants, add the word and give a treat (I used this for "stand" because it is an easy way to get the dog to stand up)
• wait for the dog to naturally display the behaviour you want, add the word and treat (like I did with the "lie down")
• do something that makes it likely he will display the behaviour you want (like I did with "paw), add the word and treat

The good thing is that the more different approaches you practise with puppy, the quicker he will be to learn even more things in future. Learning is a skill in itself and they get better and better at it.

Kiko pup on YouTube is very good for watching how to do it (which I found far easier than someone telling me or writing it).

Try getting your dog to do sit in lots of different places and with lots of different distractions. I found sit to be my friend but hadn't realised at first that just because puppy would do it fine at home that he wouldn't do it in the park or on the beach or when there was another dog to look at etc..

Stay: if you put your hand up like a policeman saying “stop” put a treat in your other hand and place it behind the stop hand and say stay. If you put the dog in sit first and then rock back a pace and then forwards towards him and mark it and treat. Then rock from side to side saying stay and putting your hand up with the treat hand behind the stay hand.each “stay” add on a couple of seconds and move a little further away before going back to pup and treating.
This is how i taught my pup to stay, he’s.a similare age to yours and now i can go to the opposite side of the room and back before he moves.
Lie down: put pup in a sit, then hold a treat between your thumb and finger and move it slowly down from pups nose towards the floor between his feet. He’ll lie down and then you can mark and treat. Once he’s got the lure you can start pointing and holding the treat in your palm. Point from his nose down to the floor and say down. Once he’s down mark and treat. Once he’s got it you can start disappearing the sweeties. Only jgive him one every now and then just to keep him on his toes and interested.
Paw: hold a treat in your closed palm on the floor, once he paws your hand mark it and treat from the other hand. Then you can start lifting your closed hand up and when he paws it you can add in the word “paw”, “shake hands”, etc. It’s very iportant that you treat from the other hand though so the closed hand keeps his interest. Once he’s consistently pawing you can start adding “paw” in first and he should get it.
With all of these you can start to treat less and less but never take them away completely so he has something to work for and look forward to.