Yorkie Tricks?
 

Have you guys and gals trained your babies to do any tricks? And if so, how do you train them? I need to train my baby before it's too late.. :rolleyes:

Use LOTS and LOTS of treats!! You can get them to do anything with treats!

If you make your fingers in the shape of a gun, and say "BANG," Otis will fall over and play dead. Let's see...he can wave "HI" with one paw.

If you say "KISS-KISS," he will lick your face.

If you say "GET IN YOUR BAG," he'll jump in the bag.

He knows the basics, SIT, STAY, ROLLOVER, LAY DOWN, GO POOPEE.

All right...enough of the bragging mother!

Wowie zowie! That's some neat tricks. My baby is so hyper though! Do you ever tell Otis to go Poopee and he doesn't need to poop?

Amazing tricks Junebug, I gotta yell Yoda what Otis can do to uhh, "inspire" him to learn. Yoda can dance, sorta, though, of course you need to hold a treat in front of him. He can pirouette pretty well when he wants the treat bad enough.

Geez, that is one cool BANG trick. I think you need to videotape it for us. ha ha

One of Toto's "tricks" is that she will sit up [looks kinda like a little "prarie dog"] and she begins to "talk" [she makes little sounds that we swear sometimes sounds like words!! HONEST!] after she has our attention she pats her little front paws and we call it "pattycake"! She will keep this up until we acknowledge her, either with a treat or just a "Good Girl"! I don't believe that Yorkie's are ever too old to learn ... you just have to be diligent. She just did this one on her own and we gave her a treat and she has just been doing it ever since ... they just crave attention! Like she isn't already the center of our universe!!! :p

Sometimes before we go to bed, Mike will say "Go poopee" and Otis will run out to the kitchen to do his business. Sometimes he ignores Mike and rolls onto his back and looks up at him.

Sometimes after we wake up, we'll tell him "Go poopee," and yes, there will be a piece of fresh poop on the pad.

For the most part, he knows what the word means. "Poopie" for us means number one and number two.

I actually think hyper dogs are easier to teach than calm dogs! Hyper dogs seem to want to get a reaction out of you, and they respond well to praises and treats.

Otis is on the calm side, and in the beginning, it was really hard to teach him. We went to puppy training school, he didn't do too well because he was the smallest puppy in the class and probably felt intimidtaed. But the classes taught me a lot in terms of how to work with my dog, and even though Otis is now 4, I still use a lot of the methods in training that I learned from the class.

I was fascinated when I saw puppies responding to hand signals! Dogs truly are amazing pets.

I don't remember how old Neesa is, but if she's under 6 months and fully vaccinated, I would recommend "Sirius Puppy Training" for her or any other puppy. Here's the link:SiriusTraining. It's a lot of fun! I'm not sure where you are located, but I'm sure there's more info on the web site.

How cute!! Does he have his rapper's outfit on when he's dancing? hehehe!

What I was taught is you need to assign a word to the action so that the dog can relate the action with the word.

So everytime Yoda does that dancing motion, make sure to say "Dance! Dance! Dance!" then soon he'll be able to do it on command, maybe even without a treat!

Yes, we do try to assign a word to each distinct action. Hrmm, Yoda still pees outside and is really good about it in his pee bin, but pooping is another story. He likes to wander about outside, goes from one side of the porch to another, then circles about 3 times, then finally does his duty.

No, Yoda is frail and timid anytime we put on any of his costumes, whether it be Gangsta Pup, SuperYoda, or his Bunny Outfit. He'll just stay and look all pathetic and not want to move at all.

So, with Otis, you don't need to wake up in the middle of the night for him at all? Does he know how to go get water on his own, go pee or poop if he needs to, or eat a midnight snack?

Yes, Otis does all of that by himself....that's why Mike built the steps, so Otis can climb up and down the bed by himself, and won't bother us while we're sleeping!! hehehehe...yeah yeah, we're lazy!

That sounds like Otis trying to find a spot on the bed to fall asleep! I swear, he takes forever to lie down! He finds a spot, makes a million circles, doesn't like it, goes to the other side, makes another 10 circles, etc.....

Does Yoda poop on the pee pad too, or does he only poop outside?

She's speaking the truth. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching the movie Signs with the amount of crop circles Otis is making to get comfortable. ;)

Junebug forgot one other trick: USE THE STAIRS. Honestly, he knows that phrase now, and is starting to use the stairs on command. The trick was easy to teach him. Just don't bring him up on the bed, say the phrase, and then tap on the top of the stairs. Whammo, instant trick learned.

So, Mike, when are you gonna start taking orders for the little stairs?? ;)

Every night I bring in a footstool from the living room and Higgins knows it's time to pop up into bed. Did it right from the gitgo. He gets up and down during the night if he needs to pee on his pad.

Since we have been home, his housetraining has experienced a setback. MOST of the time he pees on his pad or when we go outside. BUT he poops all over the place and I don't seem to be getting anywhere with him......GET THIS: Last night I walked into my bedroom and there was a poop on the carpet. So I looked right at Higgins and scowled and said "Poop on your pad" in a not very happy tone of voice. Then I went to the bathroom to get some toilet paper to pick up the poopie and put it in the toilet....but when I got back to where the poop was, IT HAD VANISHED! Then I noticed my bedskirt moving.....and who comes marching out from under my bed but Higgins, with, I SWEAR, a smile on his face that said "No more poopie on the carpet, Mommy." I looked under the bed. There were FOUR poopies under there! That little devil has been cleaning/hiding them up for awhile! Now then, a dog who is smart enough to do that OUGHT to be smart enough to do them outside or on the pad to begin with! We are going to have a little talk.......

Heheheh... Yoda actually pooped in our living room back in our condo. Since the carpet was a muddy gray/dark color, we didn't notice it for 2 days! Luckily it didn't smell that bad and we didn't step in it.

It just takes time for them to understand that they need to poop in certain places. Yoda has been great lately, always pooping outside on our patio or in the grass when we go for walks. Today, I took him to work and he just pooped on the hard vinyl floor in the bathroom, rather than on the carpet. We were so proud. However, he is being one fussy, whiny boy now...

How did you teach Otis the BANG trick? Or to start perhaps PLAY DEAD? Yoda is too active for us, he's never still, and doesn't much like laying on his back with paws in air...

I think Junebug started by having him sit, and then cradling a treat in her hand. As she moved the treat over his head and back behind him, it naturally made him fall back.

And the repetition of saying the word "Bang!" at the same time as he gently rolled back allowed him to eat the treat if he did it all the way. With practice, he was able to do it without a treat at the end.

Either that, or Otis is a total wuss, and just saying the word "BANG!" makes him scared anyway. :D

Hahah.. we've been trying for a bit without treats, definitely need to start practicing a lot WITH treats.. Thanks Mike!

That's the technique for "Roll Over," Mikem! hehehe...

THE "BANG" TRICK:

Make your hand into the shape of a gun (index finger pointing, thumb up, and last three fingers curled), but hide a liver treat or graduate in the three curled fingers. Let Yoda know that there's a treat in your hand.

With me so far?

Have Yoda sit or stand still. Place your thumb near his nose and your pointed index finger near his neck/behind his ear area, and he will autmatically try to turn his head to get that treat you're hiding in your thee fingers. While he's turning his head, push down, keep pushing, keep pushing gently until he's on his side, head on the ground in the "playing dead" position. This whole time, he should be trying to get that treat and not even realizing you're making him lie on his side. DO NOT GIVE THE TREAT TO HIM.

Important tip: Only release the treat from those three fingers when he is in that final position. DO NOT LET HIM GET BACK UP. He should know he only gets rewarded when he's lying on his side.

Do that a whole bunch of times, and soon Yoda will recognize the gun-looking hand signal to mean "play dead" and you can incorporate the word "BANG."

Hope you understood those diretions.

I'm giving Yoda Mommy a look at these directions. I don't follow directions too well. :P

Thanks Junebug!!!

Wow, Junebug, it WORKS! It REALLY WORKS! :)

Yoda is now great at "BANG"! Thanks a bunch... what other tricks are you gonna teach us Yorkie owners how to train our Yorkies to do! :P

Well, we have a problem.....

Where you say "Have [Yoda] sit or stand still." There is no way I can get Higgins to DO that!!! He has two speeds: asleep and warp speed. There is no sitting......sigh......Hopefully he will get better as he gets older......I think he has puppy ADHD! :rolleyes:

Uh oh! It takes a lot of patience. I think Yoda got really good at staying still because he begs us for food so much. We usually give in, too, and give him a little bit of bread, or any non oily or non salty foods...

Sitting is easy AND fun!! And I KNOW Higgins will learn it because the more hyper the dog, the easier he will be to teach.

Here are the instructions for "SIT."

Have a ton of treats handy that Higgins loves. Let him know you have one in your hand.

Move the treat upwards and backwards over Higgins' head, keeping it close to his nose. Move the treat backwards between his eyes only an inch above his head, saying "SIT."

As Higgins lifts his head to follow the food, he will sit down. The second his butt his the ground, give him his reward!

The reason why this method works is it's impossible for dogs to look directly upwards without sitting down because of the way their spine is structured. (I learned that at puppy training school.)

Wow! I'm glad it works! I was afraid you wouldn't understand those crazy instructions!

Remember to mix it up and sometimes make him do it without a treat....or he'll get to be a smartypants and only do tricks for treats. But always, always praise!

GOOD BOY, Yoda!!

Hee hee, I think you need to write a book on Yorkie tricks for their DUMMY owners (like me)! Thanks, yeah, we do mix it up, he responds a bit better to it for Mommy than Daddy, but he'll learn I'm sure.

It's never too late to train tricks (or just about anything else)
 

Krissey - what do you mean "too late"? I've trained a 13 year old rescue Yorkie with a heart condition to roll over and wiggle her paws when I squeeled "Tessie Blue!"

RETRAINING is much harder, but training can be done whenever. I can elaborate if you're interested . . . ;) wink, wink.

What is it you want to teach your dog?

I know this is an old thread, but the BANG! trick by Otis (and taught by Junebug) is one of the coolest tricks ever (in my opinion), so this may interest some of the newer YorkieTalk members! Enjoy, and thank Junebug! :D

Absolutely! We trained Sandy when we got her and she was an older dog as well. She knows many commands, and will probably learn more once we get Tia past the basics. Dogs are amazingly smart animals!

I love it when older threads get brought back!