Tricks in Progress
 

I thought I'd make a thread for those of us who teach our dog tricks and are continuing to learn new ones. I don't know if it will go anywhere, but I figured we could give each other tips on tricks and maybe videos how to train the trick!



Jackson knows about 12 (or 13?) tricks now and for the past 2 days, we've been working on "limp" where he walks across the floor on 3 legs "limping." I just thought it was the cutest trick and today we made somewhat of a breakthrough! I think he finally understood what I was asking for him to do, and he took one step limping! So we're gonna keep working but I could tell he was getting frustrated so I'll try again tonight.

This is the technique I've used to teach the trick!

Thanks for the post Britster! Zak George is fantastic and I have this guy on tivo wish list and season pass because we're always trying to find new ideas for tricks.

Guinness can already do owie paw in a sit and stand position. Now I'll have to get him to walk on three's. :eek:

Yes, I love him!

Good news - Jackson's got limp! He will take about 3 steps on 3 paws! :) Yay! Next in line -- take a bow.

Smart boy Jackson! :D

Taking a bow should be easy for him now Britster.

Hold the treat in one hand and push towards his chest. When Jackson bows, have him do a stand quickly.

When dogs are first learning bow they tend to plot their butts down then confuse it for a down. So, keep that butt up- bow, stand, bow, stand etc. :p

This is great Brit! I love it! thanks for posting the vid, I'm gonna try it with Uni, we are out of ideas on tricks.

What are you referring to as bow? Is it front elbows on the ground and fanny in the air? If that's it, that is one of the EASIEST ever. I will tell you now. Hold the treat in your hand with the thumb and index finger. The rest of your fingers out straight, almost like doing the ok sign, but all fingers together. Turn your hand pinky toward the doggy and put 2-3" from the ground and say "bow". They will look up and underneath the hand to get at the treat, but they will always leave theh booty up in the air! This was one of my last tricks I taught Uni, and I kid you not, took about 10 mins. :D

Wow Jackson is really smart! WTG Jaskson>

Thanks so much for the tip! I can't wait to start working on bow!

Yep, that's the kind of Bow I'm talking about... thanks for the tips!! Sounds pretty simple! I'll work on it with him later :)

Do you think it would be impossible to teach a small dog to do this jumping on your back trick...? That's such a cool trick but I dunno how possible it would be with a smaller dog... I suppose we the humans would have to be closer to the ground.

I think it's possible. If I can ask hubby to get on all fours hmmmm... :rolleyes:

We've been trying this one. Uni is just too small. I don't want her jumping down from that high. Even though she would, but she's not supposed to. I think jackson could do it, he's bigger and sturdier.

That limping trick is way harder than it looks. i didn't have much luck on day 1. :(

LOL ;)

Yeah, Jackson didn't get it at ALL at first. We just did it for like ten minutes and I could tell he was frustrated so we stopped and waited til later that night. Today was the first day he's REALLY getting it! He still won't limp for more than 2 or 3 steps tho. I just kept repeating over and over with holding his paw and guiding him across like the video.

This thread rocks!!
My first Yorkie was a huge and I had tons of time to teach him tricks. The best one ever is he taught us how HE can play the piano...
One day he jumped up on the piano bench and smacked his paws on the keys, looks at us and runs to the cookie cupboard. Now we say "Charlie play the piano" and away he goes.

I know Uni can shoot a ball through a hoop, any tips on this? I've got a cheap little hoop that you stick to the fridge and it will be perfect for teaching him this because it be as low or as high as I want it.

I started this last night with him... when I have treats in my hand, he does not care one bit about the ball so to get him interested, I taped a bit of hot dog to the actual ball so that encouraged him to pick up the ball. He will get the ball and bring it to me no problem, then I treat him. My problem is.. how on earth am I going to get him to put the ball in the hoop?!


That is SO cute!!!

HAHAHAHA!!! :sidesplt: taped it directly to the ball???!!! I can imagine it now...

Ok, anyway, I'm sure Jackson knows "drop" already? Have him drop near the basket. What we did was we actually took the ball and let Uni watch us put it in the basket and say "slam dunk" or "shoot it" or whatever you want. Another way is to have the ball underneath the net and have him look down into the hoop and see the ball at the bottom. Keep putting the ball in the basket and say your command word "slam dunk", etc. Or if he's one to hold onto things when you pick him up (Uni does not, if she has something in her mouth and you pick her up she will drop it) have him get the ball and pick him up and place him over the basket and tell him drop.

I guess you gotta see what works for him, but those are the three methods we tried. You will find he will probably have some weird little quirk about the hoop. Uni will NOT touch the rim. Like she thinks it's hot lava or something. We tried putting the basket up higher, which would mean she has to put her paws on the rim, she will not do it. She strains with her neck upwards but has her paws back practically behind her ears.

So once you get him to drop at the right time, then say "Good dunk" or whatever. The first time Uni got it we cheered so loud we freaked her out.

Scruffs does the SAME THING. He'll chase toys.. ladeeda TREAT drops toy runs over. It is quite frustrating since when we did agility the trainer insisted we had toys as rewards, but he knew I had treats so he showed no interest in the treats. There were 15 dogs in the class, all of them looked at the squeeky scented with real animal toy except Scruffs. He also doesn't get excited, ever, so the trainer would be like rile up your dogs, and Scruffs would look at me like I'm retarded. He just wants the treats :P.

We've began our daily training sessions again. I'm trying to get him to whip his nose. Then we are going to perfect the wait (treat on nose) and pray (aka bow, I call it pray for some reason!). I can't wait till after soccer starts I can do agility, that was so fun for him! You should consider it, I think Jackson would like it.

Ha yes!!! I literally used masking tape and taped a piece of hot dog on the ball so he would pick it up, ha! When he knows I have treats, he will not play fetch/pick up ball/etc. Ha, it was the only thing I could think of. Alright thanks so much... I'm gonna try some of those ideas out tomorrow. He's passed out right now... lol.

LOL, yep, sounds like Jackson. I can get him excited with a toy as long as I don't have treats as well. He's just not a toy-motivated dog.

I'm definitely going to be looking into agility soon! There's a few places around here that are starting up end of January and I'm thinking of signing him up. He's never taken formal obedience classes though, I've taught him myself so I want to sign him up for an intermediate class first. :D

That's what I thought, too. At the first class the lady asked, who has taken their dog through obedience class? Everyone raised their hand but me. Still, my dog was the best off leash, and over the jumps/hoops. He had minor difficulties with the chute! I didn't get to the level with weave poles. The point is, I'm sure you have done a lot of training with him. Make sure you practice heel, stay, come, sit, and down (off leash and with distractions). It took a long for Scruffs to sit down on grass. That was a BIG task for him!!

Ugh, I want to do agility with Uni but she can't heel!!! She can heel off leash but not on! Oh come on! :mad: She's driving me nuts! She can heel off leash with distractions too! Go figure. As soon as the leash is on her crazy light turns on.

What do you mean by "whip his nose"?

Hey, this is great! So many new ideas for tricks! Daisy loves to do her "training" everyday. Same time every morning she goes and sits in the middle of the living room waiting to learn something. I'm going to try the limp trick.

Sorry I meant wipe his nose! It's like when their eye itches they scratch it. He used to be good, but now he thinks its ok to just lift his paw up 2 inches and not even touch his nose. At least he sort of has the idea of it.

LOL, that's so funny. The leash is just her trigger, I guess! Jackson's not the best at heel. He'll be a good for a bit but if we're outside off leash and he sees a squirrel or something.... off he goes! I don't think we'd ever get anywhere in an actual agility trial but I just wanna do it for backyard fun. :) Btw, I got your tunnel! It's a BIT small but I think Jackson will crawl through it... we're gonna work on that once we're finished with take a bow and shooting through hoop! I'm on my winter break from college, so this is gonna be my time to teach new tricks! LOL. Now every morning is our training time!

Yay, give it a shot! It's really cute. Jackson does the same thing... he loves our sessions, ha

That's a cute one! How do you go about getting them to touch their nose?

Well I was teaching Scruffs to wait (with a treat on his nose) and he kept wiping it. I thought it was sooo cute, so I decided to try to teach him to do it on command. At first I was unsuccessful, but I found that if I put a bobby pin hanging down from his bangs he wipes it :). So I gave him a treat every time he did it!!

I just realized, Scruffs hasn't jumped on my desk to steal my food/pencils/notepads/etc in months. Glad he grew out of that :)!

ahhh, bobby pin, good idea! How did you manage to do the wait w/ treat on nose trick? Is it a bigger treat that will stay on the nose or what? Uni won't stay still.

wow it got there fast! I guess he can do an army crawl through it then. I think you can tie ground stakes to the little ties and secure it in the grass.

Anyone ever have success with "throw"? When Uni is really happy with a toy or bone she will randomly toss it across the room. I have not had luck with getting her to do it on command.

I never even thought about that! Jackson does that occasionally with his toys, but not very often. He's not too big on toy most of the time, so I don't know how I'd ever get him to do that, LOL