Why does my dog obey at home but not outside?

Stormie

Stormie's file is where the concept is named out loud to a family, and where the trainer says he does not like the name. The three Ds - distance, duration, distraction - with the rule attached: you do not add the second until the first one is good, and duration is where they start. She holds place for about ten minutes, which he calls a goal time, and he says that now is when the distractions come in. An earlier part of the same lesson gives the order concretely: place work first because impulse control is her weak point, then distance, then more people, then walking past dogs. And her file is one of the two that force a fourth D into the list. On a hot day she downs on grass in seconds and refuses the concrete slab; the handler says outright that she is cool with the grass and does not want it on the concrete, works reps on the slab rather than around it, and two days later states it as policy - the commands have to be learned on concrete and then everywhere else. Her file also supplies the only deliberate use of the dog's own state as a variable: she is tired, so he walks her past people specifically to find out whether the tiredness helps the impulse control or breaks it.

Luna

Luna is where the surface stops being an observation and becomes an experiment. Her down is fluent; in a new place, on concrete she has never been asked to lie on, she fights it. The trainer says he has never done it on concrete before, notes that she did a couple of quick downs in her session the other day and calls the difference very weird, and then moves her onto grass to find out whether the ground is what she is arguing with. Her first owner lesson had already stated the principle - start on grass, because dogs sometimes will not down unless they are on grass until they really know the command, then move to concrete - and a third session confirms it in the plainest possible terms, that she prefers the grass, which makes sense, because it is hot. The same lesson carries the companion refusal, which is really a statement about hidden variables: he will not say sit before the down, even though it would put her in an easier position, because she would learn that the down needs a sit first.

Louie

Louie’s surface example begins with the trainer explaining that some dogs need to practice on grass first. In a later shared session with Sage, the trainer discusses Louie responding more quickly after moving from blacktop to grass. At 11:25, the discussion turns to Sage and the trainer reports having tested the ground’s temperature. Another Louie session contrasts his heel when traveling somewhere with practice in the training yard, which the trainer identifies as an area to keep proofing.

Sage

Sage's set gives the heel ladder as a plan - a little longer, then abrupt stops, then fast and slow - and makes the sequencing explicit: another session first, and only if she is doing well each time do the criteria go up. Her intake description names which two of the three she was missing: no command at verbal-only fluency, no duration, and off the command at any distraction. A down is slow; the handler wonders whether it is the blacktop; he moves the dog to the grass; it gets quicker; he concludes that the surface was a big part of the problem. That is a hypothesis, a test and a revised conclusion inside ninety seconds, said out loud, about something that would ordinarily be filed as stubbornness.

Dolce

Dolce's file adds gradient, and the way it is added is the most honest moment in this concept. Mid-session, off leash, on uneven ground, the handler asks for level ground and then says he had not thought about that - proofing for downhill and uphill, or uneven ground, because it can definitely change the way a dog does a heel. A variable discovered live, named, and folded into the list by somebody who could simply have moved on. Her owner lesson gives the standard version alongside it: the heel is made longer and longer in different areas, so that she learns that no matter what is going on she has to hold it for however long she is asked. And a later session raises distance to its limit by the handler leaving the scene entirely, with the e-collar kept on as the only thing that can reach that far.

Dutchess

Dutchess is the case that separates two things the standard list collapses. Distance, in the proofing sense, is a difficulty dial. Proximity, for her, is a relationship: she wants to be touching her handler, so working three feet away is genuinely hard, and the trainer's reading is that she is trying - she has to learn she cannot be that close. He gets there by elimination rather than assumption, and says so: she is fine with duration if he is close to her, for everything, so it really is the distance part. The rest of her file is textbook - about twenty seconds of held down before stepping away, one criterion raised at a time, distraction added to a behaviour before duration and distance are asked for at all - and her second lesson raises distraction in one deliberate step from two easy dogs to the whole household at once, in the room where the problems live.

Kodak

Kodak supplies two things. The standard model, said on a walk: the trainer is starting to add the three Ds to his down. And the variable that decides whether two dogs can meet safely: how much room there is to get away. Outdoors, where either dog can leave, comes first; a room removes the retreat and adds everyone else's tension, so indoors comes last.

Bullet

Bullet's file has the clearest account of how a criterion gets raised, and it puts the reset in the middle of the mechanism rather than beside it: the dog gets enough time to come completely back to baseline - wander, get pets, sniff everything - and only then does the criterion go up, so that he thinks he has figured it out each time. Duration or distraction, one of them, and over time you have a heel that is more and more solid. His file also contains a variable that is not distraction: pace. He knows the heel, and if the handler speeds up he falls behind - not forging, not crowding, lagging - which is a fault only a change of speed produces. And a place hold with a cat brought up to the cot is a rare instance of the size of a step being named out loud as bigger than the last one.

Bo

Bo shows the dial being turned down, which is the half most owners never see. On a public trail his whole criterion for success is that he stops when the handler stops - one element, named in advance, with the distraction left high. In a busy store with two strange dogs and machinery, the trainer decides he has pitched the criteria too high, says so, gives the dog a break, and then gets the heel by lowering the criteria a little - saying that out loud as he does it. And in a crowded shopping area the environment is named as the cause of the failures rather than the dog: he is very distracted here, and the criterion shrinks to one good turn.

King

King's proofing is done with the thing he actually wants, which is what makes it count. The ball goes in a pocket, then it is thrown, then it is thrown while he is on place, then the handler runs at it himself - a distraction raised in graded steps inside one exercise, with the dog holding. The trainer's summary of a long place session names two of the three Ds together and is careful about the third variable in it: he held for a longer duration with more distractions, there were dogs walking by, a little far away, but still good to see. And the philosophy behind it is in one line - that is exactly what he wants to see, the temptation part, you need temptations.

Zeus

Zeus's file states the heel as a three-stage model rather than a list of dials, and the third stage is this concept exactly: once he knows the position and knows it is his job to keep it while it moves, you try to shake him out of it, and you give consequences either way when he keeps it. The remaining work on the heel is then named as two things and no more - reinforce it consistently, and proof it under distraction. His first owner lesson gives the venue ladder that goes with it: the facility's training room and yard first, then trails and parks where he will see other dogs but there is room, and stores towards the end of the programme.

Finn

Finn is the dog for whom the order is reversed and the handler says so. With most dogs you can add distance and distraction fairly quickly; with him it is duration and that is it, close up, and distance goes on afterwards. The reason is in another session: distance is the criterion that breaks his sit, because stepping away is its own problem for some dogs, so the criterion is lowered back to sitting next to him. And his file contains the plainest statement in this concept of what a change of context actually costs: everything they had to go through to get basic things indoors has to be gone through all over again outdoors, and the trainer describes it as a reset rather than as a regression.

Deuce

Deuce's file adds the variable an owner will never think of: another person the dog loves. His recall is nice around the trainer, and once his owner entered the picture his control went down a lot - the presence of a particular human treated as a difficulty dial in its own right. He also shows a failure being converted into a proofing plan rather than a correction: a stranger actively engaged with him, so the blown recall is not punished, but it is named as something that needs more proofing. And tiredness appears again as a condition rather than an excuse - the point being that the rules should still be clear to him when he is tired.

Lola

Lola's case holds the three Ds against a nervous dog's ceiling. Distance is withheld because her nerves block it, and duration is raised instead - with the reason given in the negative: he does not want her to learn that coming out here to train is a miserable experience. Her go-home lesson turns the same idea into a three-phase ladder a family can run: inside behaviour first, then the back garden, then out and about, stores and hikes. And her second lesson adds the criterion that decides when a duration repetition is actually finished, which is not a clock at all - the anxious stare has to go, and until it does it is not really a smooth repetition of the command.

Roxy

Roxy's sessions treat environment and latency as the criteria being raised once the behaviour itself is done: she has learned it to a relatively good extent, so this is a different environment, proofed out in public, smoother and quicker on verbal only. Distraction is raised deliberately and announced - they are going to challenge her - while distance and duration are left alone, which is the one-at-a-time rule being followed in practice rather than described. And the household's other dog supplies the distraction for the sit, a few feet away and working, with a recall used as the reset. The handler also proofs place with himself out of sight, behind a closed door, and corrects a break he hears rather than sees.

Ace (Chihuahua-terrier mix)

For a heel, distance does not apply because the command is in motion, so precision takes its place: tight on the curves, no drifting off to sniff, within a pet-dog standard that does not require prancing.

Akira

Place is proofed against the particular events of a house, one at a time: a knock at the door, people walking around, the television, a meal, petting, the handler leaving. The criterion is all four feet on the cot rather than a position, and neither petting nor the handler walking out counts as a release.

Bandit

Distractions are taken as they come: passing dogs and a deer are treated as proofing repetitions, and later the handler sets up a sidestep on purpose so a mistake happens where it can be corrected. A slow down on asphalt becomes owner advice to think about the surface first. By the long down, distance, duration and distraction are all in play at once. At his first off-leash test (30 Sep material) the down is tested for distance and duration together: the trainer walks to the end of a bridge, 150 or 200 feet by his estimate, with his back turned, and Bandit holds it although a person walks up at the other end.

Callie

A German Shepherd proofed by distance, duration and absence: a long down at the end of a flexi lead, a sit with the handler walking past, a cot hold with the handler out of the house. Venues are picked for their load, including a named low-distraction zone for new work.

Dory

The stay is proofed by the handler walking out of sight, and she looks for him.

Josephine

The three named and combined for an implied stay, with a real-world version: a sit before every road crossing, as habit and as stay practice the day supplies for free.

Major

Duration first and at low distraction: time on the property before any park, and running dogs added only after low-distraction recalls.

Neo

The surface again, from a different trainer: a dog who would not sit on concrete is proofed on the surface where he struggles until it carries over to gravel.

Roman

General curriculum delivered to the owners rather than shown on Roman: obligation is learned place by place (a down that is not done over there gets enforced, and then the dog learns it is obligated there too), and the leash should end up as a prop.

Kane

Kane's park walk is where the three are taught as a lecture rather than mentioned in passing. Proofing and generalisation, the trainer says, belong in the real world because that is where the commands will be used, which is why the intake asks where a dog lives and goes. Distraction is 'one of the three D's'; distance is how far the dog is from you, tested by walking away, behind or to the side of a downed dog; duration applies to nearly every command. He gives target holds - a sit for 30 seconds to a minute, a down for at least two or three minutes - and for a heel treats distance as duration, because the dog is meant to be beside you. The three can be raised together or each on its own, and generalisation is the separate question of context.

Kali

Kali, Kane's housemate, shows the dials turned one at a time. At the second owner lesson the trainer explains proofing to the family along the same lines, with a heel goal of a couple of minutes. On film: a down beside a volleyball game with 'a little bit of distance and duration and distraction'; later the same day a down proofed for distraction only, with duration and distance deliberately kept low; and in her first full off-leash session a down held while he walks the length of a field to the bleachers without looking back. She is also a surface case. On 10 Sep she would not lie down on concrete, did it on the grass, and he concluded 'it was just a surface problem' - adding that she still needs to lie down on concrete. On 25 Sep, after a slow down, he guessed the same again.

Beo

Beo's walks put the order in words: now that he knows the commands, the criteria go up - respond to the first ask, then higher distraction, more distance, more duration - and the people on the trail are the distraction. On a greenway a week later a down is held as one person and then a stroller with a child pass; the next attempt is not clean ('No. Baio, down.'), he is put back, and the trainer calls the walk 'just proofing everything'.

Apollo (the Sharkie)

With Apollo the distraction dial is turned by whatever the park supplies: a down held while high-speed runners with dogs go by. On a heel walk the trainer says he is now trying to proof the recall for distractions.

Astro

Astro's place session names the three Ds outright as the next step. In a later heel-and-down session, once the down comes at a working level, the trainer says he will start working distance, duration and distractions on it.

Bane

Bane's trainer explains distraction level to the family with an extreme comparison. A recall during tug in the backyard is one thing; walking Bane through Times Square is another, and the difference is 'just a distractions thing'.

Bernie

On a store outing Bernie's down is proofed by the handler moving out of sight, walking past him and making noise. Bernie holds it.

Bun

In an August session Bun's trainer tells the family that reliability comes from the three Ds. Each is negatively reinforced, then paid on the far side with release to freedom and praise.

Chunk

Chunk's down is taken onto gravel on purpose, a surface the trainer says dogs really dislike lying on. In a later session he takes the down to a park the pair had not worked in, to generalise it.

Clark Kent

In a store, Clark Kent's sit is proofed by the handler pretending to shop rather than standing at a distance watching him. The handler picks things up and bends down, so he learns those movements are not a release. He holds when an employee walks past.

Cosmo

In Cosmo's place session a loud dog in the room is welcomed as the distraction.

Daisy

Daisy's heel practice carries on through construction noise, which the handler counts as 'different distractions and proofs'.

Drago

Drago's trainer reads him before raising anything. If the down is a struggle he will not push the implied stay on it; if it goes well, he will hold it slightly longer but barely add distance (that part of the line is uncertain audio). In a later Short Drago holds a sit through 'distance duration and lots of distraction' with no leash pressure.

Fiona

Fiona's down gets duration plus movement behind her, which the trainer calls 'always hard for dogs'. Her place is proofed by distance taken to the extreme: through a gate and two doors, into the house.

Hattie

In a sit-duration Short Hattie stays in the spot regardless of distractions, with the handler 'really pushing it' by working at a distance. She holds as a person walks by.

Josi

Josi's trainer makes a point about priorities. In a quiet setting, building duration is fine, but 'if they can do 15 minutes they can do an hour'. What matters more is the other two Ds, and distraction is 'the big one': going behind a tree, walking out of sight, then busier places.

Kalypso

At Kalypso's go-home lesson the heel progression is laid out: slow at first, then fast-slows, then duration and distraction - heeling past people. As a service-dog candidate she also practises long downs at the facility while staff, dogs and kennel techs walk in and out.

Levi

On a walk Levi's trainer places the three Ds inside the three phases of training: learning, clarity, then proofing, where 'we add more distractions durations and distance'. Levi is still in the learning phase.

Lucia

Lucia is shown a new place from far away first, then taken further into it. In a park Short the trainer raises distraction only for what she already knows: she is not asked for a down near a distraction, because she does not know that command as well.

Lunna

At Lake Benson the trainer explains the three Ds to a colleague: 'you only add one at a time'. Duration is how long the dog holds the command, and distraction is graded by place, the indoor dog room being far less distracting than outside. A later session proofs Lunna's sit against a gate being opened, closed and walked through.

Marvin (Giant Schnauzer)

Marvin's recall and sit are proofed around ducks, a distraction the trainer waits for on purpose.

Max

At Tractor Supply and on an outing, Max's handler uses less pressure each time while adding more distraction and getting 'further and further away'.

Murphy

In a heel Short with Murphy the trainer says the only thing he does next is make it longer: increase the three Ds, little by little, with negative reinforcement and the release.

Oscar

Oscar's trainer names the three Ds and then uses passing dogs as the distraction for an implied stay, with the Flexi left unlocked so the choice is Oscar's. On another outing the sit gets 'a little bit more duration a little bit more distance'.

Ozzy

At Ozzy's first in-program lesson his trainer grades distraction by venue: a quiet room is low, a park is medium, and a store like Home Depot is high. For an excitable, nervous dog, even his own family standing in front of him is high distraction (that part of the passage is uncertain audio).

Penny

Penny's down duration work is named as 'the three d's and the two c's'. In a long place session she holds the cot with a cat seven or eight feet away and ducks close by: duration and distraction together.

Peque (PK)

At Peque's home evaluation the family is shown that all her positions are implied stays and that each is built with 'what we call the three d's': distance, duration and distraction, adding to each in turn.

Piglet

Piglet's down is tested for 'two of the three Ds' at once: the trainer walks far away with his back turned. In an earlier lesson the family is shown how to 'up the ante' in steps: walk around, throw a toy, move faster, open a door.

Stormy

At Stormy's second private lesson the owner walks behind her, and an 'eh-eh' puts her back when she starts to get up. The trainer calls this the start of building distance, duration and distractions: 'rinse, wash, repeat'.

Thor

With Thor the dials are named as they are turned. On walks it is distance and duration on the sit; at Bass Pro the heel is proofed for 'duration and distraction'. For place, distraction is to rise in named steps across sessions: a knock on the door, walking around, leaving the room.

Thumper

Gemma names Thumper's sit as being at the proofing stage: distance, duration and distractions, plus context and 'client proofing'. On another day the handler keeps a friendly dog away from his heel work because, although it would be a nice distraction, 'we're not there yet'.

Whiskey

Whiskey's heel is proofed in different areas, at different speeds and with different turns, because a dog that can do it at one pace or in one place has not learned it everywhere. A passing cart serves as the distraction test.

Zeus (March 2026)

With Zeus, the March 2026 Cane Corso, distraction is the last dial, turned by venue. At the park he does all his commands, so his final week moves to stores to proof everything.

Whether the ground is a variable or an excuse.

How to read it

Both handlers agree the surface is real; they disagree about what follows. One treats it as information and moves the dog; the other works through it on the spot. Not resolved here.

Which of the three to raise first.

How to read it

Not a contradiction so much as a default against a diagnosis, but it matters, because the default is the version that reaches owners in lessons and the diagnosis is the version the trainers actually run. Note also that the trainer who gives the per-dog answer loses the names of the three Ds mid-sentence and is prompted by an owner, which says something about how much of this is a formal framework and how much is working practice.

What are the three Ds?

Distance, duration and distraction - how far away you are, how long you ask him to hold it, and what else is going on. The rule that goes with them matters more than the list: you add one at a time, and you do not add the next until the first one is good. Duration is where he says they start. On place that means holding for longer before anybody steps away or anything interesting happens; ten minutes is described as a goal time. Only then do the distractions come in. Several handlers add to the list. Penny's handler says 'the three d's and the two c's', and Thumper's names the Cs: context, and client proofing - the dog working for the owner as well as the trainer. Levi's trainer places all three in the proofing phase, after learning and clarity.

He lies down on grass in a second and will not do it on concrete. Is he being stubborn?

Probably not. One trainer starts every down on grass as a matter of course, because dogs sometimes will not lie down on anything else until they really know the command, and moves to concrete later. Another says plainly that some dogs are weird about it and you have to do it in the grass first. A third, watching a slow down on blacktop, wonders whether the surface is the problem, moves the dog to grass, gets a quicker down, and concludes the blacktop was a big part of it. And a fourth checks the ground with his own hand before asking a dog to sit on it. So before you turn anything up, put your palm on the ground, and try the same repetition three feet away on grass.

Which one should I raise first?

Duration is the stated default, and the reason given is that it builds the impulse control the other two will need - five or ten minutes on place is described as a whole workout for a dog who is not naturally patient. But the trainers do not follow it blindly, and the exceptions are instructive. For a frightened dog the order was inverted: with most dogs you can add distance and distraction fairly quickly, with him it was duration only, close up, and distance afterwards. For another dog the diagnosis ran the other way - she was fine at any duration as long as the handler was near her, so distance was the only hole and the only thing worth working. The useful version of the rule is: raise the one this dog is worst at, one at a time, and know which one you are raising. Josi's trainer adds a weighting rather than an order: in a quiet setting duration is easy to stretch ('if they can do 15 minutes they can do an hour'), so the effort belongs to distance and above all distraction. Drago's trainer shows the other half of the rule: if the base command is struggling, nothing gets raised.

How do I actually raise one, in practice?

Get the repetition, then let the dog come all the way back down before you ask again. One trainer spells it out: the dog gets plenty of time to reset - walk around, follow him about, get some pets, sniff everything on a walk - and only after he is completely back to baseline does the criterion go up. The point of the reset is not kindness, it is that the dog gets to feel as though he has figured it out each time, and that is what makes the next raise survivable. Then you raise one thing - a bit longer, or a bit more going on - and over time you have a command that is more and more solid. If it fails, come down rather than pushing: one trainer in a busy store says out loud that he pitched the criteria too high, gives the dog a break, lowers them a little, and gets the heel immediately.

What else changes a command besides those three?

The ground he has to lie on. The slope - uphill, downhill and uneven ground change the mechanics of a heel, and the trainer who noticed it said he had not thought of it before. Your walking speed - one dog holds a slow heel perfectly and lags on a fast one, which is a fault only the pace produces. How much room there is to get away, which is why two dogs meeting outdoors is easier than two dogs meeting in a living room. How close you are standing, which is not the same thing as distance-as-proofing: one dog in this record wants to be touching her handler, so three feet away is genuinely hard for her. And the dog's own state - one handler walked a tired dog past people specifically to see what she does when she is tired. And whether you are in sight: a place hold with the handler behind a closed door, or walking out of view, is a harder version of the same command.

He does it perfectly on his bed and nowhere else. Which D is that?

None of them, and that is the point. When only the place changes, no distance, duration or distraction has been added, yet the command can fall apart. Finn's trainer puts it plainly: everything they went through to get basic commands indoors has to be gone through again outdoors, and he calls it a reset rather than a regression. Akira's place is proofed room-event by room-event inside her own house for the same reason. The fix is not to raise anything but to run the same teaching again in the new place.

What should I use as a distraction?

Whatever your dog actually wants, and preferably something already in your life rather than something you set up. One trainer sums up the standard in one line - that is exactly what he wants to see, the temptation part, you need temptations. And one warns against the cheap version: a repetition against something the dog is only mildly curious about proves nothing, because curious is not the same as pumped. Whatever arrives, graded by place: a loud dog in the room (Cosmo), ducks at a pond (Marvin), passing dogs with the Flexi left unlocked (Oscar), a store employee walking by (Clark Kent), a passing cart (Whiskey). Ozzy's trainer gives the ladder: quiet room, park, store. A distraction beyond the dog's current level is avoided, not trained through (Thumper).

How long should he be able to hold a sit or a down?

The only numbers in the record come from one trainer on one park walk with Kane, and he gives them as what he wants rather than as a rule: a sit for 30 seconds, 45 seconds or a minute, because you rarely need longer, and a down for at least two or three minutes. At Kali's lesson the heel goal is a couple of minutes, because that is longer than you will normally need it. They are targets for duration only; the same trainer says the three dials can be raised together or one at a time.