Hi Da-Bear;
Your Saint looks quite adorable. Congrats on getting a rescue Saint as well. I have a five and a half month old Saint Bernard pup named Guinness and he's our first Saint. I've trained and owned various breeds from a Norfolk Terrier to a Bullmastiff. Our last dog before Guinness was an Australian Shepherd, so it's been an extreme change in terms of energy, temperment and response to commands. I completely understand your frustration with your pup's taking time to determine if she wants to obey. I remember with my Aussie you'd say jump and he'd jump (literally), so it took some time to get used to Guinness who, when being trained, would ponder his response. But having said that, I would say that his intelligence level is right up there with the Aussie. In fact, he was the top dog in his basic obedience class. And now, at five months, he will sit, stay, down, come, wait, off, etc, with less pondering and more response. The beauty of the Saint is that they do really want to please you. He will work for praise and when he does a good job and gets a verbal reward there is a bounce in his step. Lastly, Saints are considered one of the top ten breeds to train:
"Easy to Train Breeds:
I have trained over 8,000 dogs and am still learning. In my years of experience, I’ve noticed, these are the breeds that were happened to be the easiest to train. They were rarely stubborn, dominant, or became aggressive toward people, dogs or kids.
• Maltese
• Sheltie
• Collie
• Saint Bernard
• Australian Shepherd
• Toy or miniture Poodle
• German Shorthair Pointer
• Pointer
Good luck with your girl and I'm certain as the bond between you will continue to increase and she'll learn to anticipate what you want of her.