Thor gets his yellow belt in Roll Over

Yay! Thor has started to really get Roll Over. We have gone through a few training sessions where "Roll" seemed to mean "Down". He finally got comfortable enough rolling over to use the "classic" roll over teaching method, which I mentioned in an earlier blog (lure the dog's nose over its shoulder with a treat). So I would say "Roll" and Thor would Down. Then I would lure his nose over his shoulder and he'd roll over like a pro.

Last night, he started reliably Rolling from a stand position. If he simply went Down, I did the classic positive reinforcement correction, which is to look away and do nothing for a few seconds, indicating that the desired behavior was not performed. Incidentally, this is a good trick to use with animals AND people - if you want to extinguish a bad behavior, rather than giving a negative response, give NO response.

Anyway, he seemed to get pretty quickly that going Down was not enough, and he put everything together. Now I say Roll, he gets Down, and Rolls!!!!!

It's super, super cool. A month ago, I didn't know if he'd ever get it. This is also Thor's first intermediate-level trick!

I've got a few more I'm dying to teach, and then I think I'll be done, at least for a while.

- Bang!
- Speak, and Whisper
- Take It (he knows Drop It and Leave It), but I'd like Take It too.
- finishing touches on Shake. He will paw at your hand, but he doesn't like you holding his paw and actually shaking it, which at least doubles the adorableness of the trick.

After that, I'll probably start on his fear of skate boards. Though it would be really cool to teach him to fetch his toys by name.... Hm.