Just a quick question, might be common sense but how do you teach a dog to sit pretty and dance? I just didn't know if there were any tips on which one first or how to go about it since there is a difference in the two tricks but not a huge difference. Sorry if this question has been asked before. Thanks in advance!

Here's good instructions on sitting pretty-

Jackson has terrible balance so we're still learning this one!

He kind of taught himself how to dance... he started going up on his hind legs to greet me so I would shake my hands and say "dance!" and he quickly understood what that meant. That was our easiest trick. To teach it, I would try to lure him up into a stand position by holding the food at a level where he can't reach it. The second he does it say "good, dance!" and give him a treat.

Dance is on this site too http://animal.discovery.com/videos/s...ol-dog-tricks/ - kind of a funny one!

Hahaha, has anyone seen this jack russell named Jesse? Smartest dog ever!!!


YouTube - JustJesse197's Channel

How do you teach a dog to blow bubbles???? Dang. Today I remembered two tricks I forgot Scruffs knew. Pray and spin (and "other way" if that counts ;)). Right now we are working on perfecting pray and dance and teaching back up and forward.

BLOW BUBBLES?????

Uni only spins one way, she's not an ambi turner, like Zoolander, she can't turn left. Actually, when she does chase your tail, jump and spin, and up and spin, it's all to the right (clockwise), BUT when she pees, it's to the left!!!

Backup is easy. Use both hands like the aircraft controller guys and in a sit position say back up and move the hands from ear level and back behind them. If you have treats in BOTH hands, they will move back evenly. :)

I used to be able to have Scruffs "get your tail" and then he would bite it. I doubt he remembers, haha.

Jackson does spin and then spin the other way, he learned those really fast for some reason. And Zoolander!! lmfao! Jackson learned "dance and spin" too the other day. He's fast learning tricks that incorporate other already learned tricks lol.

Jackson learned back up in like 2 seconds, lol, that one was definitely really easy. I think it'd be cool to have him weave backwards through my legs. Zac George's video on that got his dog to back up, spin, back up, spin and then he had the dog go thru his legs. I haven't been able to get Jackson to do more than just walk under my legs tho.

Oh and I wanna teach him to do the moonwalk! lmao! I figure since his name is Jackson it'd be kinda fitting! He can back up but it doesn't look like the moonwalk... I dunno how I'd get him to do this:

How cute is that?!

No WAY!!!! OMG too cute!!!!! I think that may be one of those things that doggies do on their own, and the owners just name it something. Like Uni's jump and spin, she did that on her own and we just named it. :)

Lol, yeah!

So this morning during our "trick session" :p he sort of learned the basis of weaving through my legs. I didn't call it weave though... I taught him how to go around and then under. So he goes around the outside of my right leg and then under my legs, then around the left side and back under my legs. If that makes sense! It's pretty cute and he learned it within 5 minutes, the next step I guess would be to be able to walk and him still do it aka weaving through the legs, lol.

I still cannot get him to take a bow for the life of me! It's odd - he's just not getting that one and it's supposed to be easy. He does it sometimes but mostly he just continues to lay down all the way... oh well, work in progress. :rolleyes: He takes a bow by himself alot of times too while stretching so I thought he'd catch on fast. Everytime he does it by himself and I've caught him, I tell him "take a bow!" Maybe one day it will just click.

hmmm, maybe you are putting your hand too close to the ground? Try putting it like a little lower than chin level and see how he reacts. You want to get him to look up under your hand at the treat.

I haven't taught Guinness how to weave through my legs yet- still stuck working on the limp and trying to get hubby to get down on all fours. Lol!

If you followed my instructions on bow... no wonder Jackson doesn't get it. I just re-read what I originally wrote. OMG!- more info please. :(

Ok, to clarify... round two. ;) You have to get on the ground with Jackson and begin by having him stand and face you. With treat in hand, say bow, and in one smooth movement, lead that hand to the nose, then towards chest and finally to the ground- back by his elbows and between the paws.

The goal is to get Jackson's head down (ie; chin to chest), have those elbows hit the the ground and keep that butt up.

Timing is important to mark the behavior you want. Watch the elbows- when they hit the ground, treat and say 'good bow', then quickly get him stand before that butt hits the ground.

To solve the problem where the dog is backing away to get the treat, begin by working with their side facing you instead. Use your free hand positioned behind their bum to stop them from backing up.

If the dog is plopping their butts down, start by having their side facing you. Position your free hand underneath, in front of back legs to stop that butt from downing.:eek:

... How about some pics of video's of tricks in progress!

Maybe that's it... I usually lay my hand down on the ground and I guess he sees that as be telling him down. He's better with hand signals than vocal commands so I need to start thinking of new hand signals lol. I'll try a new technique!

Thanks for the great detailed tips! I hope we get bow soon! Maybe I'll set the video up tomorrow if I remember, I think that's what helps people out is seeing a dog in the process of learning it.

In the meantime - I found this video pretty helpful:

I haven't had time over these past few days with Christmas and all to work on tricks so Take a Bow is still a pretty much no-go. :(

I just wanted to add another helpful video but another cute trick. It looks semi-easy, yet super cute:

Limp
 

Yeah.. i like that Zakgeorge21 guy on YouTube.. he has AWESOME tricks.. i suggest you look up KIKOPUP as well. I taught my Morkie to jump in my gym bag and crate training from her.. lol..

I have tried the limp, but Yorkies and Morkies have such short legs, it takes forever to get them to travel. I just started loose leash walking by strapping the booger to me and walking around the house with treats.

Nothing beats real meat.. i use lean roast pork, and chicken. Gets my dogs attention all the time.

You may want to teach your dog to play dead when you say, "bang".. i have taught mine to do so.

Limp
 

Yeah.. i like that Zakgeorge21 guy on YouTube.. he has AWESOME tricks.. i suggest you look up KIKOPUP as well. I taught my Morkie to jump in my gym bag and crate training from her.. lol..

I have tried the limp, but Yorkies and Morkies have such short legs, it takes forever to get them to travel. I just started loose leash walking by strapping the booger to me and walking around the house with treats.

Nothing beats real meat.. i use lean roast pork, and chicken. Gets my dogs attention all the time.

You may want to teach your dog to play dead when you say, "bang".. i have taught mine to do so.


To get your puppy to sit up, it's quite difficult. They don't have the muscle memory or balance.. I have just got mine to do it after about 5 hours of training over 2 weekends. He now knows how to balance and stay there.

Sitting pretty is like a crouch. They sit on their bum with their legs as support.

Dancing means that they usually go up and stand on hind legs and either hop or spin.

Sitting pretty is tougher for smaller dogs with weaker muscles which are required for balance.. i had to train mine the same way but had to ensure the dog held that position for a longer period of time to develop balance and muscle memory.

Hey, yep, I'm subscribed to kikopup as well. She's excellent! Jackson knows almost 20 tricks now including bang bang. He learned that at 5 months old, it's one of his favorite tricks! Here's a list of all his tricks (I think!): sit, down, stay, come, crawl, spin, spin the other way, dance, roll over, bang bang you're dead, limp, shake, sit pretty, high-five, ten-five, take off my socks, catch (a toy or object in his mouth), around & under (our version of weaving through my legs staying still), and take a bow (he did it consistently for the first time the other day, yay!). OK, I THINK that's all. I really want to teach him "say your prayers." That's too cute. :D I'd love to see a video of your pup doing tricks! I agree on the real meat - Jackson works HARD for chicken.

Tricks
 

How did you train your puppy to do the following:

- Crawl ( i am assuming on the belly? )
- Limp ( i am trying but he takes such small steps..lol)
- catch thrown objects ( is this in midair? How do you get them to catch like that?

Thanks, and have fun!

Crawl is very easy. have your pup in a lay down position. Now with the treat on the ground in front, slowly pull away and say crawl. It helps to put your free hand a few inches about the butt so if they start to stand up and feel you hand they will plot that booty back down and crawl forward for the treat.

Now since Uni learned bow, she now sometimes crawls in a bow position, so I have to retrain her to do a proper crawl :rolleyes:

Catch, I will try to get my youtube vid on here. I first tried with a small soft plush toy. I would have her sit and say catch it right as I tossed in at her face. See the importance of a soft toy? LOL She quickly learned that if she didn't want to get hit in the face she would catch it. Don't worry guys, it didn't hurt her at all.

Limp, cannot for the life of me get her to do it. Well I've only tried twice so maybe I should keep trying. :p

Crawl, I put him in a down position and lured him with a treat. After about 2 minutes, he was understanding what I wanted and 10 minutes later, he knew crawl. This was one of the easier tricks.

Here's a good video:

To teach limp, I did exactly as the first video I posted of Zak George. It took Jackson 3 days. This one:

Catch has been hard for Jackson and he's still not 100% consistent. His eye coordination is apparently not that great, LOL. I would have him focus on me and hold the toy up so he was staring at it, then I'd throw it (I started at a very short distance) and whenever he caught it in his mouth or even tried to catch it, I'd say "Catch! yes!" We didn't really use treats for this one, it was like a game.

During this video he says not to use treats from the store, to use real food...will that help? We have been tearing apart store bought treats but if this will help maybe we will try it.

Buster learned to "crawl" on Saturday. I can't get Maggie to do "down" no matter what I do. She will walk away when I start trying to teach that one to her. She will try everything else but she won't try that one. Buster is a quick learner and will do almost anything for the treat but Maggie will walk away.

Capt Noonie, I have seen Uni's video of tricks. Very impressive. Uni is very good! I can't get either of mine to do roll over.

I have not been working with them for a while but now I want to get back into it. Buster seems easier to teach and he picks up things very quick, do you think it's because I had a trainer for him when he was younger? Anyway, I am back to teaching tricks. Wish me luck!

Possibly! I have heard that males are also a lot more willing to please than females sometimes but obviously it depends totally on the dog.

And yay on Buster learning crawl! It's such a cute trick. :D

Hm, I don't have much advice on "down" as Jackson learned that one fairly quickly and I honestly don't even remember how I taught it. I think I kind of just guiding him into a laying position with a treat.


So, I'm thinking since Jackson's on no activity for a week with a hurt leg... how in the world do you teach speak? I can't get Jackson to do it on cue.

I tried to get Scruffs to "speak" but failed. He rarely ever barks except maybe once every 10 times the doorbell rings if all the other dogs I'm pet sitting bark. I guess I'm lucky, but if I try to get him riled up so he barks he just looks at me like I'm retarded.. I decided it was one trick we could live without, after all I don't want to teach him to bark haha!!

Thanks! We worked with Uni every day at each mealtime since she was 3 or 4 months old, so it was a lot of work! Here's a vid of her when my bf taught her rollover. He stayed home from work to teach her this, LOL. She learned it in the one day, but didn't perfect it for quite a few weeks. Have them follow your hand going over the shoulder and help them roll over.


For "down", I am guessing Maggie is a tiny? Most tinies when you ask them down, and put the treat on the floor, that is like 2" under their chin, so they're like "what?" and just look down. Put her up on a chair or stool, that way she won't be able to walk away. Now the floor is much farther away. Say down and put the treat BELOW seat level. They will have to lay all the way down to get closer to the treat.

Good luck!

For speak, all we did was hold a treat in one hand and with the other hold out you're gonna high five someone and we said speak but in a deep barky voice. Uni got it really fast. If they are hyped up and want the treat they will bark. We even taught this to my BIL's bull terrier, who even though is very friendly is dumber than rocks. That's the ONLY trick he knows. SOMETIMES he will sit.

After she got speak, then she felt like she could bark whenever the heck she wanted, so we would say no or quiet and hold out a finger and point at her and squint our eyes, like we were mad. She would growl out of frustration b/c she wanted to bark. Then we would say good growl. that one took a long time to perfect.

OMG, look at her!!! LOL. Sooo cute! I don't think Jackson was ever that small, ha! How much did she weigh there? When I got Jackson at 9 weeks old, he was already almost 5lbs.
(sorry it's kinda repetitive lol, I was proud, he had just learned "bang")

Oh wow, look at him go!

I don't remember how big she was when we first got her, but she was small enough to barely balance in one of my bf's hands. I just looked at her vet papers at 6 mo and she was 3 lbs, so at 4 months I guess about 2.5?

Oh my goodness he is so adorable! I love how he just flops over. I can't wait for soccer season to be over so Scruffs and I can start agility again. We don't have the time now.

So cute, she looks so little in that vid, hehe. I love when she does the crawl. It took Jackson longer to perfect the roll over too as you can see from the video, he kinda halfasses it lol.

Hehe thanks. I need to see Scruffs in action doing some agility whenever you get into it again! I can't wait to test out our new agility stuff once Jackson feels better.