Puppy Training.

Training a dog is time consuming, but rewarding.  You don't have to spend an hour at a time in a training session; in fact it's best not to.  We spend little sessions of 10-15 minutes a time with Brienne and we consistently reinforce behaviors at random times, like sitting before meals and such.

Here are some of the things I have learned through trial and error while training Brienne:

Clicker Training:
This is something that I (regrettably) have just now started.  To do this you must first "load" the clicker.  "Loading" a clicker is quite simple; what you do is click and then treat.  Repeat this until your dog looks at you expecting a treat when you click, that's when you know he or she gets the idea that clicking means there is a treat to come.
Clicker training allows you to reward in a more timely and consistent manner - you will get faster results with this method.
You don't have to buy a clicker, you can use a Snapple bottle cap (or any cap that pops when you push it), or you can simply say "yes."  But you still have to "load" the system before it becomes truly effective.

Lure Training:
Lure training is awesome for training sit, lie down, play dead, roll over, and a whole host of other tricks.  The concept is simple: lead your dog into the position you want by holding a treat in front of his or her nose.  Click or reward at the right moment, and repeat.

Discouraging jumping:
If you're an owner of a large dog like we are, you'll appreciate the importance of having your dog greet with all four paws on the ground.  Brienne is 66 pounds of furry love and you better believe she comes at you with full force - there's a reason we call her a truck dog.  We have children in our home quite frequently, so this behavior is unacceptable.  It's all in the name of puppy excitement, but 66 pounds is a lot of weight and she can do a lot of damage pretty quickly without meaning to.  I've done a lot of searching, no, scouring of the interwebs to find a solution to this, and I've tried several approaches.
Let me tell you right now kneeing your dog in the chest doesn't work.  Not for us anyway.  It might be because hubby wrestles Brienne during playtime, but whatever the reason kneeing her encourages the jumping.  So that idea is out.
Having your dog on lead is a good idea in general.  This way, if you have unexpected company you can step on the lead to prevent your dog's front paws from ever leaving the ground.  Do make sure to leave enough slack that your doggy can look around freely.
What we're trying now is behavior conditioning.  It seems to be working better than the above two methods.  What you do is confine your dog with a baby gate or puppy play pen before your guest enters your home.  You and your guest cannot pay any attention to your dog until he or she quiets.  This can get difficult if your dog is anything like Brienne; she gets loud, and I mean loud.  Resist the urge to tell your puppy "no" because any attention is inadvertently rewarding the behavior.  Once he or she is quiet, praise quietly (clickers are great for this) and give treats.  Give lots of treats for any relaxed behavior like what I call a "butt-flop."  Butt-flops happen when your doggy is lying down and his or her bum moves to the side so that his or her hind paws are no longer directly under his or her bum.  Eventually the association between guests and excitement will fade.
The hardest part about training your puppy not to jump is asking other people to comply.  I stopped taking Brienne out for walks because people on the creek path would stop and let her jump all over them.  When I asked them politely to discourage her, they would usually reply with something along the lines of, "oh, I don't mid if she jumps on me."  Yes, but  I mind if she jumps on you.  Once the stranger replies in this way, there's really nothing else to be done because if I insisted that she not jump up, the stranger would generally get offended.  I will never understand why, all I was asking was for my training efforts to be respected, and I was asking nicely.  Ah well.


Those were the major things I wish I'd picked up on sooner.  Just thought I'd share them with ya.