Obedience 101

Obedience 101 consists of the five basic behaviors that most pet owners would consider sufficient to qualify your foster pup as a "well-trained dog": Sit, Stay, Down, Come (recall), and Heel. If you can add Housebreaking and one or two cute Tricks to the dog's repertoire, congratulations! Your foster pup has graduated from canine finishing school and is well equipped to make her new family proud.

In my experience, it takes about four to six weeks for most dogs to learn the Obedience 101 curriculum and proof it to a level that allows them to perform the cues more-or-less reliably in new environments with new handlers. Generally I work through the list by teaching one behavior per week (or until the foster dog has figured out what I'm asking), then continuing to refine and proof that behavior while teaching the next one.

Sit

Sit is the easiest behavior on the list to teach, and since it forms the basis of the Nothing in Life is Free protocol, I usually start working on this one within a day of a new dog's arrival.