Your Favourite thing to teach a dog, and how you do it?

[MysticRealm]

I was wondering what everyones fave thing to teach a dog is? Be it fetch, heel, potty-training (I hate that one :p ), a type of trick or anything. Then tell me your fave way of teaching a dog to do it.

[Rubylove]

This is going to sound totally lame but I love teaching a `sit'. It's a stepping-stone to everything else you train your dog to do, and most often the first thing you ever teach them.

To me it's the first step towards a wonderful bonding training relationship with your dog, and I never, ever fail to get a `thrill' when I see it in their eyes the second it `clicks' for them - they get it, they know what you want, they know what to do, they are all of a sudden the master of their destiny. I love it.

I always teach a sit the same way. Quiet room, no distractions. Sit there reading a book until the puppy/dog gets bored and sits. Click and treat. Read my book. Puppy/dog sniffs around, gets bored, sits, click and treat. I nearly always do it in a bathroom where there's very little to interest the dog except you, so it usually only takes about 30 seconds for them to get bored and sit. Within minutes they'll get it, they'll start offering sits. Click and treat. Shortly after that you introduce the word, and voila! A sit is born.

It's a positive, wonderful way of training your dog to work out for itself what you want, get it right, and get rewarded for it. It makes them feel amazing and it makes you feel amazing.

And, for the record, I have never spent any more than 10 minutes teaching a reliable sit in this way. No matter what the dog. Other stuff is more complex and you can't be quite as simple in your approach. But you can with a sit and I love it.

[silverpawz]

Who's your momma!

I learned this from another trainer near me, who learned it from a former client. I think it's adorable and it always gets a big laugh.

I say "who's your momma?" and the dog taps my leg with his paw. :D
My favorite trick.

[Rubylove]

Who's your momma!

I learned this from another trainer near me, who learned it from a former client. I think it's adorable and it always gets a big laugh.

I say "who's your momma?" and the dog taps my leg with his paw. :D
My favorite trick.
Ok that is SO cute. I have to do that!

One of the members on this forum has taught their dog how to act as though it's been shot, groan and lay down and play dead. The dog actually groans. It's sooooo cool - she posted a video of it and I laughed and laughed. The command is `bang!' accompanied by a gesture of firing a gun. It's so funny.

[Brattina88]

Aw, I gotta try that one!

I also love teaching 'sit', but I don't want to sound too repetitive :o

I like teaching 'leave it' because its a very useful command, IMO

but my all time favorite trick that I taught Maddie was how to find the remote, and bring it to me :D

[Lizmo]

That is a hard one because I like teaching a lot of different commands :o

But I guess if I had to narrow it down I would say...

Sit
Bow
Dead Dog
Leave It

[RD]

I'm with Rubylove, sit has to be my favorite because it's the first thing I teach a dog. It sounds weird but I get to know a dog through "sit". Target training runs a close second, and in some cases I've trained a dog to follow a target before I teach sit. But so much can be observed by a dog's mannerisms while learning the sit and down behaviors, that nothing else can tell you.

Another favorite of mine is "jump", in which the dog leaps through a hoop that I make with my arms. I start off by teaching the dog to jump through a hoop. I balance the hoop a couple inches off the floor, click and treat whenever the dog walks through it. I raise it up gradually and then put one arm under it before the dog jumps through. Once the dog will do that, I wrap another arm around it and get the dog to jump through. Once he's used to doing that, I remove the hoop entirely and just use my arms. It's SO fun and easy to teach and it's fun to watch too, especially if you have a high jumper.

It'd honestly be easier to list what I DON'T like training (heelwork for competition would be one of those things. :o) I love watching them learn and figure things out. I tend not to like a lot of "new" stuff because I get frustrated with myself, but once I learn how to train that behavior, I'm fine with it. Training really is a skill, not an inherited talent (if that makes any sense) and it's something that the trainer has to work on too :D

[MafiaPrincess]

Lizmo.. Want to outline how you'd teach bowing?
I love the whose your momma command, that's cute.

I liked teaching touch, and target plates. I had Cider touching random objects long before agility classes though.

[BostonBanker]

What a great thread! I've been trying to think of interesting things to teach Meg with all this wet weather keeping us in.

I have to say, I've had a blast teaching Meg the weave poles. It is such a random behavior that dogs would never do on their own. It still blows my mind that Meg knows them; she even gets the correct entry a vast majority of the time. I get so excited and impressed that she gets more and more pumped, and now the weaves are a favorite for both of us!
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j201/BostonBanker525/ibr026sm.jpg

[RD]

I forgot Bow! That was fun too.

I taught it by putting Dakota in a stand position, taking a treat and holding it between his front legs. I kept a hand near his rear so he couldn't back up to grab it, and kept a foot under his belly so he couldn't lie down. I would lure him down onto his front legs, click and treat. Dakota figured it out in minutes and I then removed the hand near his butt and the foot under his belly, then faded the use of the treat in my hand and used only the hand motion towards the ground. Then I made the hand motion less exaggerated and eventually taught him to take a bow when *I* take a bow by making a very subtle hand signal as I bend over.

[Rubylove]

We were lucky in that Chester and Ruby do that front leg stretch ALL the time. We just started saying `bow' whenever they did it and when they started taking notice, clicking and treating whenever they did it. Now they will bow on command. It's way cool. Shaping a behaviour that a dog naturally offers is a very quick way of training tricks.

[GSDluver4lyfe]

I love teaching my dogs ANYTHING. I love spending time with them, and every chance I get I'm teaching them something. I am happy just bonding with them.

[MysticRealm]

THanks guys. Remember to post how you taught them to do your fave trick or whatever so others can learn to do it if they want.

[darkchild16]

i love wheres mama and hunting its so great to see them so focused on something.

[IliamnasQuest]

I think my favorite basic behavior to teach my dogs is attention - teaching them to stare at my face/directly into my eyes even when I have meat in my hands an inch away from the muzzle is just so exciting. It's amazing to get such a focus from your dogs. Since it's a behavior I reinforce for the rest of the dog's life, it's a default behavior they fall into frequently. Khana will jump up on the bed and if I reach for a treat, she looks at it and then whips her head around to stare into my eyes while I wave the treat around .. *L* .. and then I mark the behavior and give the treat.

The steps for attention training are on my website - www.kippsdogs.com/tips.html .

As far as silly behaviors go, my favorite so far has to be teaching Khana to shake her head back and forth. I ask her "should I give this treat to Trick? What'd'ya think?" and she shakes her head "no" .. *LOL* If I'm standing up at the time, she steps back and forth on her front feet, rocking her entire front end, and it becomes a dancing motion in addition to the head shake. It's TOO darn cute! I lured the behavior at first and then put it on cue and faded the lure.

Melanie and the gang in Alaska

[MafiaPrincess]

So I'd really like to teach Cider to bow.. Her agility contacts are sloppy lately.. And it would be nice to teach something she doesn't know.

She stretches out in a bow, but for the life of me I can't lure her even sort of into that position..

I had a foot under the tummy a hand at the bum, and she would try to lay down frog legged on my foot so her front legs didn't go in the position I wanted, was like a bow but backwards... back legs out front legs straight.

Help..

[silverpawz]

To teach Bow, I put my foot under the chest, and my hand on the shoulder blades. Then I slowly lure downward and between the paws, while pushing lightly on the shoulders.

If she's lieing down, then reward for just a little movement in the direction you want, and keep uping your criteria untill she gets it. Maybe expecting a full bow right away is too much.

[MysticRealm]

Thanks for the replies guys.

[MafiaPrincess]

Thank you silver, that makes complete sense.

[bcjake]

I had an Austrailian Shepherd that we would play a game where I would hold out both of my hands (closed) with a treat in one. I'd ask him which hand it was in and he would tag it with his paw. i'd randomly alternate hands and he'd usually get it right. Don't remember exacly how we learned that... many years ago.

[kidsanddogs]

I can't answer this with one thing. I love to teach tricks, all tricks. I think they are great because dogs can learn them very young and because they are so much fun, it builds a strong bond with your dog. And the dog learns to enjoy learning! Which one? and Wave are really fun. In Which One, you hide a treat in one fist and the dog uses his paw to tap the hand with the treat. It's a real crowd pleaser. I have a video of that and more tricks on my page at
http://loveyourdog.com/tricks.html

[Spirit2010]

Well, I liked teaching Hershey, "Shake" It was easy, I picked his paw up gently, and told him "Shake" and then praised him, and petted him, now he lets me touch his front paws. Lovely trick. :) (It took me three days to teach him this trick, with no treats!!) He trusts me picking his paws up now. :D other than his back paws, but I am going to work on it. Its really easy to teach.

[Lizmo]

Lizmo.. Want to outline how you'd teach bowing?



Oh sorry about that :o Any this has probably aready been answered but...

What I did with Lizzie was I have a treat in one hand, then have the other hand on her stomach, which would stop her from sitting, so anyways, then I took the treat and slowly moved it down her legs, and then she would naturally go into the "bow" position :) And then just lable is, and you can make a hand signal for it too :)

[tessa_s212]

My favorite trick by far has been teaching Cocoa to "sneeze" on command. It is absolutely adorable.

But, really I just love to train. Specially short, easy, fun behaviors such as "spin", "bow", "jump"(straight up in the air), "crawl", etc etc. And of course, my most obsessive addiction yet: agility!
I taught my rescue to bow by actually first teaching her to target to my hand. (Bop her nose to my hand.) And then I just asked her to "touch" when my hand was practically on the floor. She no knows "bow" by hand signal, adn I'm now using that "bow" to teach her 2o2o agility contacts! Haha.. creative!

[Kmh1]

I've got a question maybe soem of you can help me with. I have trouble teaching Zippy any tricks involving laying on his side. He will not let me lure him into this position and if I try to gently guide him onto his side he jumps up immediately. My other dogs were pretty easy about this. Zippy is very intense and animated during training session and just does not get the laying flat out stuff--when he is relaxed and sleepy on the couch I can sometimes guide him into that position, but I haven't figured out how to put it on cue. Any suggestions? I would love for him to learn "play dead" and "roll over" Thanks!

[Gempress]

The best trick I ever taught was "fish out of water". I taught it to my rather wiggly pit bull Tank.

Whenever Tank rolled over on his back in play, I'd get him excited by rubbing and tickling his tummy. Just before he started squirming and kicking, I'd say "fish out of water". Then I'd reward with a treat. He learned it in a surprisingly short time.

It was so adorable. Whenever I'd say, "Tank, fish out of water!", my big red pit bull would fling himself onto his back and thrash wildly.

I haven't been able to teach that to any other of my dogs to date. They just weren't natural "wigglers". But I think I'll try with Voodoo. I bet he could do it!

[Amstaffer]

My favorite thing to teach my dogs is "NO KILL"...why? its so easy :p :p

[Doberluv]

I've got a question maybe soem of you can help me with. I have trouble teaching Zippy any tricks involving laying on his side. He will not let me lure him into this position and if I try to gently guide him onto his side he jumps up immediately. My other dogs were pretty easy about this. Zippy is very intense and animated during training session and just does not get the laying flat out stuff--when he is relaxed and sleepy on the couch I can sometimes guide him into that position, but I haven't figured out how to put it on cue. Any suggestions? I would love for him to learn "play dead" and "roll over" Thanks!
__________________

In this case, I would definitely use the capturing technique. Is he clicker savy? Read up on that first. Prime him to the clicker and then when he is already lying down that way....maybe he's resting or about to take a nap, click and treat. Be sure to catch it before he raises his head so you don't reinforce the raised head. Just wait for times that he is lying down with his head down and on his side, click-treat. Get things under way and then try adding in some instances where you lure (if he doesn't lie down a lot on his own) and if you can. Click/treat. He will, after several reps begin to associate the yummy treat with that position and will tend to repeat it for the reward. Use a high value treat and low key praise so he doesn't fling himself back up in the excitement. Once he is giving you this position, start adding a cue word (bang bang, or whatever) at the same time that he is IN the position, not before. Once you've done that for a long time and you think he's made the connection, try offering the cue before he goes all the way down. Click-treat. Don't try to get the complete down with the head down from a stand. Start out when he's down, but maybe he's got his head up. Later you can try from a sit or a stand. When he gets to the point where he is going down on cue regularily, you can eliminate the clicker. Keep treating every time for a while longer. Then you can skip a few times with the treat but still treat him sometimes. You don't want him to regress and stop offering the behavior. It still needs reinforcement on a variable reward schedule.

I encourage you to read about clicker training. It's very effective for tricks.

http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/index.htm

[Doberluv]

The jury is still out on what my favorite thing is to teach. Maybe I don't have a favorite thing. LOL. I'll be thinking it all over.