Fritz the dachshund masters obedience school!

BOISE, Idaho (KBOI) - I'll admit it.

I think my dog is perfect, but I know Fritz's showmanship and manners are less than AKC certified.

So I decided to enroll my 9-year-old dachshund in obedience school.

I called upon Paula Xan Cudd of Precision K-9, whose company promises to train the untrainable.

KBOI 2 got a look at her 8-year-old German Shepherd, who's won top awards in utility, signal and open exercises.

With Fritz, our first lesson establishes his baseline obedience level.

Which is zero.

"Will he do a sit stay?" Paula asks out our first obedience lesson.

He walked away.

"OK, if you have him on a leash, will he do a sit command?" Paula asks.

Fritz... did not.

Paula first teaches an appreciation of the hound breed.

She calls Fritz... independent minded.

"They're bred to work separate from you - to work ahead of you - to do things their own way," Paula said. "If you think about it, these guys are tenacious - they're badger hunters."

We begin with an exercise called a random recall.

Fritz is about to learn "come."

I say the word...

"Fritz come!"

And gently, but firmly, pull his leash and teach him to come toward me.

"So what he's learning to do is associate a command with a behavior," Paula said. "And so you're showing him that behavior like the word is come, here's what you do, and the praise tells him that is what I want. That's the right thing."

"Sit" is something else Fritz needs to learn on command.

A small pull on the leash and a gentle push behind his hip bones teaches Fritz the motion associated with the word.

"And I'm not pulling hard - I just want to show him that's what I want your body to do - good boy!" Paula said.

Our next lesson moves to the great outdoors.

"Come Fritz! Come!"

A few distractions get added to Fritz's testing, yet he's clearly improving his obedience skills.

"Now call him!" Paula instructs. "Come!"

Paula adds the "Go" command, teaching Fritz to associate being free to go to his dinner plate.

"So he learns 'Go' means I can go get it, because he has to learn it's ok, right?" Paula said.

And this is the pivotal lesson where I also learn obedience isn't all on Fritz.

"You've got to work on the way you communicate with the dog - so you don't want to yell at him - you don't want to nag him," Paula said. "Do something - good boy - so you give them the kind of information they need."

Time lapse video shows another lesson.

Paula teaches me over the course of several weeks that repetition and consistency will resound with my hound.

"So what kind of vocabulary do you think he can learn?" I asked her.

"Oh, he can learn the vocabulary that any dog can learn," Paula explained. "Sit, stay, down, come, stand - it's just whatever you want to put the time in to teach him."

We finally arrive at test day.

How well has Fritz learned the basics of sit, stay, come and go?

"Hey Fritz... sit!" I said to him.

After a few practice runs, we've lined up a course - complete with distractions of food and even the mechanically-purring cat.

We see how Fritz does... off-leash.

"Come... good dog... good dog... good dog... SIT!" I said to him.

I my eyes, Fritz is a rockstar.

Paula agrees, he's done dog-gone well.

"How remarkable for him to come in here - you've not done any training - and he does all this - and we're learning new things!" Paula said.

All this training has tuckered out my little badger hound.

But as Paula points out, this obedience - is just the beginning.

"You do build that bond with them and you learn what they're capable of and your confidence increases," Paula explained. "And it's really fun when you call them in and you look them in the eyes, and you're like, yeah you did good, and they know that they love it!"

And while we may never been in Zeva's league...

Fritz and I both think... he's a real weiner.

"Good job, Fritz!" I said. "We're going to Westminister next! Westminister - Best in Show!"

If you'd like to learn more about Paula Xan Cudd's private and goup lessons, head to her website: http://www.precisionk-9.com/

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