Valor- Let there be light!
Does your canine partner know a fun trick? Or are you training any fun tricks? Post a video in the comments below. No video, no problem go ahead and describe what you are teaching your dog to do and how the training is going for both of you.
In this video I taught Valor how to turn on a light. LOL
Did some agility with Purple Reign today. We are slowly getting better at following cues. All of his mistakes are mine, because I struggle calling out cues before he right next to me.
My girl Valor was needing some special alone time. I took her along on my run to Bemidji. We stopped out at the fairgrounds for a game of fetch. She got a treat at the bank and a long drive home.
When you have multiple dogs it is good for each to get special time with you.
The wind is always a tricky element when training or trailing with scent work. Yesterday was a warm and sunny day. The wind was around 8-9 mph which can throw the odor into an area you don't expect it too.
Andreas set this hide up and then told us we could enter the search area from any direction (this would never happen at a trial). Because the search area was a triangle I decided to enter from the left bottom corner of my triangle.
I questioned if he really found the hide that fast, but he was correct and I did see the vessel (the new hanging green vessel).
This was a case of TRUST your dog!
Intermediate trick- close door.
I busted working on this with Purple Reign. He knows touch so I started with my hand against the door and him touch it. After a few times doing that I switched to a canning lid. I am still holding the lid as I just introduced the command "close" today. Tomorrow I am going to tape the lid to the door so I can step away from the door.
Wobble board
Intermediate trick - Wobble board
Again I used Encore (she needs training too :) ) In this trick you want your dog to either stand or sit on a wobble board. You can purchase them from several dog supply companies or like I did you can make one. I explain how I made this one in the video.
To start you use a treat to lure your dog to step on the board. If they are scared you can place a rolled up towel or a ball under one side so there is less of a wobble to the board. We don't want to scare our dogs. We want them to trust us that we will not ask them to do anything terrifying to them. I have used my foot to hold the board down on one side too. The board will still move just not as much. Once your dog understands the movement you can try to increase the amount the board moves.
This board is a bit small for Encores natural stance ( I couldn't think of the word stance when I was taping lol). So I just have her sit on the board. I do have a larger board but I need new non-slip strips for it.
To make the boards less slippery you can rough it up with a dremel or buy those non-slip strips for bathtubs or paint with sand texture.
We don't want to cause any injury so make sure the board is not sitting on a slippery surface and make sure the board itself is not slippery.
2 feet on low
Novice trick - 2 feet on low step/stool/box
Encore is demonstrating 2 feet on low. To train this trick I start out by luring my dog to touch the object. I praise and treat even if they touch the object with one foot. As soon as I get them to put 2 feet on the object I start giving treats one at a time up to 5 treats. This is to help build duration. You can start to use the command stay or wait. Once they start to get better at holding you can increase the time between treats.
Intermediate trick- Retrieve a toy from a box or mailbox.
In this video I have Encore. This was our first time trying this trick. She was a natural. If she had struggled, I would have worked right beside her getting her hyped to grab the toy from the box. Every time she grabbed the toy I would have thrown a party for her. We would have progressively moved further away from the box.
Valor rolling a ball
Here I am working with Valor to roll a ball. This video is probably our 3 or 4th training session. When I first started out I put a little bacon grease on the ball so she licked it and it rolled. I praised her for moving the ball, but did not tell her to "push" the ball. Once she had cleaned off the bacon and grease I added a little more and just let her continue to roll the ball around. The 2nd session I had the ball out she immediately went to it and checked for a tasty treat. She rolled the ball while doing this and I praised and gave her a treat from my hand. As you can see in the video I have treats and after she pushes the ball I give her treat. When she uses her paws I just say no feet and put a treat under the ball so she uses her nose to roll the balland get the treat.
Purple Reign first lesson "crawl"
This is a novice trick - "Crawl". I actually think crawl is a complex trick, first your dog has to know down then stay in a down and crawl. I had thought about teaching this before but just never had a very food motivated dog or one that LOVED "down" as much as Purple Reign.
This is our very first lesson with crawl. I actually just wanted to see if he would do it and this boy surprises me with what he will do.
I started out with him in a sit then asked for a down. In the down postition I put a treat in front of his nose and guided it away from him. I will do several more times before I start really giving the command "crawl". I do say it a few times in the video, but I know he isn't learning the word yet.
Once he is really following the food I have a telscoping touch training device I will use to get him to "crawl" with as I walk beside him. Then I will wean him off that to just "crawl" when I say "crawl".
Renegade Catch a Toy
This is a Novice level trick. I was looking for something fun to do with my Bloodhound in the winter months. He doesn't like to repeat anything too many times that is the nature of this breed. Setting up jumps and tunnels and all that was was a bit much when he would do it 3 times and be done. lol
He loves soft toys one day I tossed his lambchop to him and it hit his face. The look he gave was priceless. I decided to teach him to catch.
Like I state in the video it is more about your aim when working with your dog. Renegade is a big guy and I don't want him jumping to high or twisting and hurting himself. I aim for just above his muzzle toss the toy after I get his focus on the toy.
Have fun start with something medium size and work to something smaller. You can use treats for trick also.
Intermediate Trick - Push a Button or Touch Lamp
Intermediate Trick - Touch/Turn on Light
This trick is fun to teach your dog especially if they have happy feet. I started out with a treat under a small box. She used her feet to flip the box to the reward. Once she started doing that I named it "touch". When she was consistent "touching" the box when I said touch I then moved to the light.
