Courtney Gordon

I watched Ivan Balabanov's training videos a few times and I still have a question. It seems pretty obvious, but here goes anyway.

In his video, Ivan gives the dog a command like sit, the dog sits correctly, then Ivan says "yes" (or some other release command). The dog is supposed to understand that the exercise is over and he will be getting a reward soon. The dog should know that he is being rewarded for sitting correctly. Ivan says that the handler doesn't need to produce the reward at the same time as the release command. The release command is used as a bridge between the correct obedience and the reward.

My question is how do you get a puppy/young dog to understand that the release command is a bridge? It seems to me that it would take a while for the dog to understand that it is being rewarded for the sit and not something else it did along the way. I haven't had a dog in a few years and back then I was taught to reward at the same time as the release command.

Some info- I'm getting a puppy next year for Schutzhund. For now, I'm just reading about different training methods.