My fiance and I have a 1 year old Pembroke Welsh Corgi. He's a wonderful little guy, smart, cute and funny. I wish I could make a video to capture his personality but I don't have one yet!

Hopefully you'll find these training exercises simple and effective.

When Destro was about 10 weeks old I learned how to make him sit on command without treats.

You take your dog on their leash either in your house or outside, wherever, and walk them. Give them a little distance (walk slowly or let them lead the way). Inevitably they will sit down to sniff something or wait for you, that's when you say "Sit" and praise praise praise... or treat! I combined the non-verbal signal as well. As I said sit, Destro would look at me and I would have my index finger raised or you can do whatever non-verbal signal you want. Do this for about an hour or so every day until they're reliable. How do you know if they're reliable? You can tell them to "sit" or use your non-verbal signal and they sit.

The non-verbal signal is convenient later when they're jumping on a guest of yours and you snap your fingers to get their attention, show the signal and they sit or lay down or go away. You do this instead of yelling at them in front of the guest and no one feels uncomfortable, in fact sometimes your guests will be amazed at how well they listen to you.

This is the only other command I could get Destro to perform without treats but you can still treat your dog if you want.

Go outside (preferrably in a leash free area where you don't mind running). Walk with your dog, get him to sit if you can and praise/treat. Run away from your dog and you'll need to be able to run faster than your dog. Turn around at a point where your dog will still have to run toward you a little. As they're running toward you say, "Come here, <your dog's name>!". Then excessively praise or give a treat. Keep doing this until your dog is reliable. Try having your dog where it's safe to be off leash (preferrably your own back yard or your living room), let them sniff around and get a little distracted from you. Then yell, "Come here!" and hopefully your dog will come, typically if you say it excited enough they'll come and be excited to see you. A non-verbal signal for this could be slapping your legs (probably will be a natural reaction anyway). You could also incorporate a distinctive whistle, that way if you're in a crowded dog park and another dog shares your dog's name, he'll know you're calling him.

This should be a really easy one, but it will help set up leave it. You pull out a treat or favorite toy, anything your dog finds irresistable, and give it to them. As you give it to them, say "Take it". If they eat it or chew on it, praise them. Trust me, your dog will like this one!

Hold a treat firmly between your thumb and your index finger. Put it in front of your dog's nose. Let them taste it a little. Say "uh-uh, leave it" (or "no, leave it") and pull it slightly away, still level with their nose. Keep trying it until they refuse to go near it, we tried pushing it towards his face and he backs off if he knows he's supposed to leave it.

For a more advanced version, put something tempting on the ground (could be treats, could be favorite chew toy). Tell them to leave it. After a good minute or two of them leaving it, treat them by saying "take it!".

Simple. If your dog has something you don't want in his mouth, take a treat out or a favorite chew toy and they should want to replace whatever's in their mouth with your suggestion. As they drop the lesser desirable choice out of their mouth, say "Drop it". After they do so, say "take it" and give them their reward.

After you master drop it and leave it, walks become much easier.

This one took awhile to master, not sure why.

Get your dog in sitting or standing position, whichever you prefer. Put your index finger on the ground as if you're pointing to it (but actually touch the ground) and say "down" or "lay" or "lay down". The theory is the dog will want to sniff your finger and put his head down, hopefully his body will go down too. Also, you could do what we did with sitting, wait until he lays down and give the command, then treat.

If you do the pointing method, wait til he completely lays down when you touch the ground. After he does that, take your finger off the ground slightly (an inch or two above the ground, but still pointing down) and say your command. Hopefully he'll understand and he'll lay down, if not, start over where you're touching the ground. Keep going until you can stand straight up with your hand at your hip level, or wherever comfortable, point down and he'll lay down. Treat any effort he gives you.

It was weird with Destro. We tried teaching him "down" and he never got it until one day he got it within 2 minutes on our way out the door to puppy training, how funny!

The command, "Out!", came naturally for us and Destro. We were never taught and we never had to treat Destro for him to understand and become reliable on the command.

This is used when you don't want your dog near you and/or your guests (example: when you're eating, when you have an open wound, or when you're plain annoyed).

Basically you point in a general direction and say "Out!" and he should go to that general spot. If he doesn't, get up and authoritatively walk into him (don't hurt him or step on him, he should move, if he doesn't wait til he does). Walk into him until he gets to the desired distance and go back to where you were. Repeat until he's reliable. This works really well for kitchen and bathroom time. If you're cooking or getting ready for work, your dog will never annoy you by being at your feet again if they master this!

Destro always "sweeps" my kitchen floor but now I tell him out and he goes to the threshold of the kitchen and lays down waiting. Hopefully your dog will do the same!

You can use this command with your car but we use a crate so we needed this command. This works similarly to the out command. We discovered this by accident.

We point to the inside of his crate with the door open and say "inside" and he walks right in and sits down, waiting for us to close the door.

Now we can do it from across the room, or even in another room and he's reliable. We never treated him, his crate is like his own space. We never use it for punishment and he loves it in there.

These commands are helpful when walking your dog. Basically it's done without any formal training. You do it, typically they'll do it. If you stop at a crosswalk, say "stop" outloud and very lightly tug on your dogs lead if he hasn't already stopped. This way if your dog is a little in front of you and you see a car coming, you can say "stop" so you can at least catch up to them before anything bad happens.

Wait came from walking up and down three flights of stairs with Destro pulling me down the corners I have yet to reach. There are three platforms between flights (one being at the top). So when Destro reached a platform I would tug on the leash very lightly, just to say "I'm not with you!" and then I would say, "Wait". Now he knows without me saying to stop at the top of each flight and wait. It's not as formal as stay, because he knows once I reach him, he can start going again. It's up to you to determine whether or not this will help you, you might not teach your dog this so they're not confused between wait and stay.

By the way, "stay" I won't go over, Destro's not at all reliable on it so I don't feel I am the best one to learn this command from.

We get tons of compliments on how well Destro behaves. I hope you and your dog will have fun with the training exercises. Remember even if your dog doesn't understand a new command, give him an old one and treat him, that way he won't get frustrated. And at least you'll see you and your dog did something right!

Keep trying, they'll get it! Meanwhile, I'll keep trying with "stay"!