Commands

What commands should a puppy know by four months old?

Sit; Drop/Down; Leave; Give; Off; Wee wee; Do poo; Bed; Come.

Doubt if all would be perfect every time at that age, but the pup should be starting to carry out these commands consistently.

Can't speak for other puppies, can only speak for Tamino who is 4 months on Wedensday.

Tamino knows these commands:

Sit
Down
Come
Heel off leash with Automatic Sit
Stay (but only for about 15 seconds)
Pee /Poo
Leave It
Away
Tunnel
Paw
Speak
Roll Over
Watch
He also will Back Up for a few steps

He doesn't constantly respond to the commands though, most of them he has a 80% sucess rate. He has been clicker trained.

Hi Barbara,

Much depends on your circumstances I think. The standard ones I would want from mine are heel on the lead, sit and down then I vary everything else according to the dog.

I have however made a big training mistake at the moment ! I decided that it was time to teach Grace to give a paw but its backfired on me. I usually teach it by holding a treat in my hand so she will paw my hand and work it up from there opening my hand. What happens now? When I have her stacked up for showing, the little madam will paw my hand! Well I suppose we could refine it into a wave for the judge .

Rocky knows

sit
stay
lie down
come here
gimme paw
in your crate

He can do all of those almost first time when he knows I have treats in my hand!

Will teach him to 'look' at me like Alison said in her training session, but I may run out of treats?!!

Also have just started fetch which I will change to naming toys by colour and retieving them!

Well hoping anyway!

All pups are different & some will learn quicker than others, some breeds will be more willing to please & eager to learn.
Part of my job involves dog training & I would suggest that by 4 months, I would expect a pup to be respectful, be learning to walk nicely on lead & know a few basic commands, however I wouldn't expect these commands to be obeyed each time at this age. But that with a little encouragement the pup should have a good idea of what's excpected.

Is it possible to overload, or train too much at this point? Savannah knows come, heel, sit, stay, speak, paw, up, jump (which is going on her hind legs, probably not a good choice of words), lay with a low success rate because I don't push her on that one, get the ball, get the toy (I haven't begun distinct identifying of toys at this point), fetch, drop it, wait. That's all I can think of now there may be a few more, not sure. I just want to make sure I'm not asking too much of her. She doesn't seem bothered or stressed with learning, and picks up very quickly.

With labs and golden's we've always begun training at about 8 weeks when we got the pup. I wasn't sure if it was different with bull breeds because I've heard let the pup be a pup a lot on message boards. Thanks for the input

There is absolutly no way you can overload a puppy with training. As long as you keep the lessons nice, short, and fun, there will be no problem.

Your pup is doing very well, there are some commands there that I will try to train.
My situation may be a little different than yours as I have a different breed, which is essentially a working breed and I want him to be an Agility and Obedience dogs as well as a Show dog and companion. Tamino is never happier than when I am training him, he about jumps for joy when he sees the clicker come out. We are working on target obsticles in agility (teter-totter, dog walk, all low to the ground, less than knee height but enough to give him the "feel" for it), and he loves them to bits.

Savannah is a working breed too, bandog. I'd like to do some agility as well. As soon as some of the home improvements wind down I'll have my husband build an A frame and a few other things I'm glad you can't overload, thank you for telling me that!

Oh Bandog. :smt049 I believe you, just that Swedish Vallhunds are a herding and watchdog breed. I really wasn't prepared for the amount of herding behaviour that he is showing.