I believe there are four basic skills that any good dog needs. That includes Here, Heel, Sit, and Place. This article is all about Sit.
Labrador Retriever Dog Training
I’ll share a short story here of the second dog I was training, Ryder. She was a small black lab mix. I had not fully taken to training hunting dogs before I got her. She was a Craigslist find for thirty dollars. I was two years into duck hunting and wanted to try my hand at training my own dog. Ryder was a fantastic family dog and taught me a lot about being a trainer.
One day while training in the front yard, we lived on a half acre in a nicer neighborhood at the time. We were doing a drill from Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy, lining memories. Ryder was absolutely killing this drill. She was taking a straight line, no issues finding the dummy, bringing it right back to me with the quickness. With everything going so well, my next thought was to start extending the distance on the drill. Not exactly my brightest idea for the location we were training in.
While extending our drill we quickly ran out of room on the small half acre we lived on. I decided to start extending across the street and into the neighbors yard. Our street was typically quiet with plenty of room to see vehicles coming far enough off. I sent Ryder on her retrieve. She was still killing it. On her way back to me a car was coming down the street, much faster than it should have been going. I did not have my whistle for this training session. I did however begin hollering as loud as I could for Ryder to sit. She was obviously excited. Here's Ryder, this small framed black lb mix with a white patch on her chest, barreling toward me with a bumper in her mouth. wanting nothing more than to bring it back to me and get to do it all over again. Roughly ten yards from the street her brain registers what I'm saying. She stops, bumper still in her mouth, staring at me throughly confused. I holler again, she sits, the car passes by. This was the moment that I realized how much our training had paid off.
This simple command saved Ryder’s life. She easily could have been hit by that passing, speeding car. Mostly because of my own stupidity for trying to train across a neighborhood street but instead her training prevailed. We did not have to take a trip to the emergency vet. I did start wearing my whistle more during training sessions. This is just one, my own, example of how important this command can be for the protection of your dog.
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