Quote:
Originally Posted by yorkiepuppie  |
Joey took the trick training class at Petsmart. I needed to learn how you get a dog to do a specific trick. What are the exact steps? Petsmart does most of its training using a food lead, they don't believe you should use your hands to prompt the position, for example forcing a dog to sit, but instead, place the food above their head and slightly back, and the dog is "led" to sit. Give the reward, and repeat this, only after the dog has done the task several times do you link a word with it, and only repeat the word once. Although this is hard, you'll want to say "sit, sit, sit." Most of the tricks are taught that way, we had tried to teach Joey to roll over before the class, and sometimes he did it, but it was hit and miss, after learning how to use the food lead, rolling over was easy to link with the word roll over. You place the food in you hand and lead your hand, the dog automatically follows your hand and performs the trick. There are probably some good books that will show you the step-by-step process. We wanted to use Petsmart because we felt that the socialization was good for him, as well. Remember, they don't teach the dog the trick, they teach you how to teach the dog, and how well your dog does, depends on how much time you spend training per day. Several 5-10 minutes sessions are better than 1 long session.