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Hi Joseph,
Not silly at all! It’s of course up to you how to use the commands in your daily life, but here is a summary of the two commands as Mike teaches them:
Place: The dog is expected to go to a specific location (bed/mat/towel) and lay down. The dog is allowed to shift position to get comfortable as long as they remain laying down. So if you teach place on a mat at home, you can then also take the mat with you and practice outdoors and use it if you’re sitting outside somewhere or take it to someone else’s home and give your puppy a bone to chew on the mat. You can generalize place to a mat and a dog bed.
phase 1 place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLHAKyd3hJ8
Climb: The dog is expected to get up on an object and stay on until released. He can do whatever he likes as long as he remains on the object. It can be generalized to mean “jump up on any object and stay on it.” This is a great cue to start with. You can use it to practice leash skills and position changes, even before adding cues to those position changes (sit/down/stand).
phase 1 climb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FzqAuO7_O4
if you would like to generalize both cues to different locations, you will need to say the cue and then point to the specific location. Alternatively, if you would like to teach place to always be a specific object, that won’t change locations, you can fade away the pointing. You can also have a specific place cue like “bed” and more general place cue. Lots of possibilities 🙂
