[Patrick Murray]

One of the gaps I discovered in my training is that my dog will \"Watch\" but he sometimes will bark aggressively on the subject. On my next dog (whenever that is) I am going to teach him/her to watch (no alert, just watch), alert (bark, no more) and, of course, to attack.

My recommendation to anyone getting a new dog is to teach them all three.

 

[Alicia Mertz]

That's a good suggestion. I probably never would have thought to distinguish between \"watch\" and \"alert\".

Any tips on how to train this?

 

[Greg Long]

I too in the past trained for a \"watch\" that was really an aggressive alert.Now I prefer to train different dogs different ways.Some dogs I want to just watch silently with no aggressive alert at all.Some I want to have a VERY aggressive alert/watch.I hadnt thought of adding another command.

 

[Connie Sutherland]

I too in the past trained for a \"watch\" that was really an aggressive alert.Now I prefer to train different dogs different ways.Some dogs I want to just watch silently with no aggressive alert at all.Some I want to have a VERY aggressive alert/watch.I hadnt thought of adding another command.

I would like to read more about this.

 

[Bob Scott]

Not a hard thing to do. Every time your dog starts to watch (focus on something) give a command. It will become second nature very soon. The down side is when the dog escalates to a full blown alert on his own. I usually bring mine back down with a simple \"easy\" command. Just be careful what you wish for though. A dog that starts alerting on his own, in a car, can be a real pain in the a$$. Specially if your day dreaming at a stop light. Thunder rarely goes into a full aleret unless I'm in the car, and they come right up to the car, OR if someone comes up and stares at him in a parking lot. I don't need a PPD, but nobody has told Thunder that. Like many have said before me, if someone is willing to come through his slobbering fits inside the car, I'll use more than the dog.

 

[Greg Long]

I agree totally Bob.That just about how I do it.I use \"easy\" also.

Greg

 

[Kristen Cabe]

There's no way Jak could learn a silent watch. The boy was BORN to bark! At 10 months old and never having been worked before, he's already got a very nice sport dog bark when he's on the backtie. He never stops until he has something in his mouth. As soon as it comes back out of his mouth (I have to choke him off it because he doesn't know aus yet) he's right back to barking again.

Nope, I just can't see him doing a silent watch. LOL!!