Over my years of training dogs, I have gained a dynamic understanding of obedience drills that lead to target training exercises. These then lead to task training for working dogs as mobility assistance, therapy, general purpose service dogs.  This article is possibly a more advanced read. 

DTC self starters training pet or service dogs need to understand action and static training exercises. As all other skills are build upon this foundation work.  It starts as daily repetitious drills. That gain advancement over a consecutive period of time.  These 5 basic training exercises are utilized in all the training profiles: obedience, socialization and fitness for all teams in training. Additionally these basic exercises build task training with a dog for service and mobile tasks for assistance dog teams.

Action training exercises for dogs are movement exercises:

                Heeling = movement drills that create the “dance” of walking on leash in sync together.   Cue for dog ‘Here’ but is also body gesture taught. Trainer moves dog moves, trainer stops dog stops.  Line use = leash trained as well.

            Recall = call dog to the BP.    It is the act of the dynamic movement of the dog moving away from something and coming to the Trainer and dog automatically assumes the BP.       Cue for dog is “here” or “Rufus Here”. 

Static training exercises are non-movement exercises:

                Basic Position (BP) = left side of trainers’ body.  The nose or base of the dog’s neck is in parallel with the handler knee/thigh and dog assumes automatically the standing position.   In other words, it is a taught stand-stay position at the trainer’s side.       Cue: “here” but there is precise “position from a static standpoint focused taught by trainer”.  In other words, precision line up at all times.  This will be covered in person another time.

Down position = dog drops to ground and assumes the sphinx position.  Dog holds position for designated duration of time. 

Stand position = dog stand still with all 4 legs on the ground. Dog holds position for designated duration of time. 

These are the 5 basic obedience target training exercises for mobile assistance dogs, service general and family pets. 

This includes training a puppy to adulthood or starting with an adult.

All 5 basic obedience drills are simple and trained up to an advanced level.   These mindful drills are trained to the dog daily.  One drill per day is chosen.  Precision line up hyper focus work is the goal.    For example, the BP dog is brought to the trainers’ left side by guiding them on a line. 

Once dog is in BP.  The BP timer starts.  Dog stays in the position for one minute.  Trainer do not move your body (this is static).  Cue dog to down.  For one minute.  Then step right, and cue dog to Here and dog should move right directly from down to your left side of body.   Do not move your body.  One minute. Cue dog down.   One minute. Step right, cue here.  Repeat 12 reps. 

 This will consume 20 minutes of training time.   There are in a single day 4-6 sessions.  This is an example of Basic Position (BP) obedience static drill training.  Then the next day, trainer would pick a different exercise to hyper focus train to perfection.   That is the purpose of an obedience (OB) drill.