Tricks and Training

Hmmm... I have absolutely zero interest in competitive obedience but your use of the target for Didgie to pivot on has given me some ideas to maybe help Mia's insistence that sit is to be facing me instead of facing the obstacles in agility.

I feel like a lazy bum because I haven't touched the clicker in moooooonths. Good God I don't even know if I know where it is anymore! Juno would probably appreciate it though if I did SOME sort of training with her.

I think last time we worked on anything, I was trying to get her to target with her back feet. And she just would NOT get it. Like, getting her to even put her back feet on something was a huge hassle.... she'd just step around it. Even if it was a giant piece of cardboard.

Check out Trkman's Heel is Just Another Trick DVD. She uses the pedestal to teach pivots and heel. It's awesome.

Looking great!!

This is how I taught Payton and am trying to clean up Auggie's by re-training. I didn't get the DVD but there are several people on YouTube who show the step-by-step including one of Sylvia's students IIRC. Tab-I-forget-the-numbers also has a pivot video and I think kikopup does too.
I really like it for Payton but beware, people who think you should teach heel with collar corrections are going to think you're an idiot. My mom was watching me work through it with Payton and said "I have no idea how this is supposed to turn into heel later." Two days later I showed her how. Now she's a believer. ;P

I really need to get some heeling video of Payton to prove he CAN do it since his rally foray was a flop. =P

I've been SOOO bad with trick training. I mean we do the ones he knows a few times each day usually, since I generally don't give him a treat for "free" lol. But in terms of shaping new things and teaching new tricks? Yeah, trying to get back into it! He knows so many, I sometimes forget or can't think of anything new to teach him.

Anywho,

We've been struggling with cross paws for a while now. He can do it with a target but just does NOT get it at ALL without a target.

This was a while back (and he had a very bad hair cut, and I sound kind of agitated but I really wasn't, LOL). This was him giving me attitude towards the end of a training session, I thought it was funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOGABQk8h6E (how do you get this embeded?)

But I just can't get away from using a target to do the cross, and every time I try to gradually take it away... the farther it gets, he just stops doing it.

He's a champ at doing backwards circles around my legs. He LOVES doing this. But he goes around about 4x and then expects his treat, so I want to get him doing it a few more times. He's gotten faster at it too which is so awesome!

I also really want to teach him to roll himself in a blanket. We just started a bit on this tonight and he's good at grabbing the end of the blanket with his mouth, but only while standing up and not laying down. Hopefully I can just tune this up later since he already knows roll over. I'll probably take some video on Monday.

Okay!

Start of a down in motion

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Mat work progress, with ball, dropped food and building duration

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And last but not least some pivot work! This is about the 2nd day we've worked on it

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HAHAHA I love Jackson's "attitude!" Cracks me up

Awwww Didgie is looking so good! What a smart girl

Here's our second Hold session. We're getting there LOL. I definitely think this method will work better than what I was doing before.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qFSlhV15Fc

I still don't know how to embed...

Next to the thumbs up and thumbs down is the Add To button and next to that is the Share button. Click that and you should get the option to embed, click on that and then copy the link it gives you. Then just paste that alone and you've got an embedded video!

And I love Kimma's hold! Going super well it looks like! I still don't have a hold on any of my dogs.

I'll have to get some videos of Mia. My trainer keeps telling me to bring a camera to class to get another perspective on things. My dog looks so spastic compared to y'alls.

It's why I video so much, I really really get to see how they look and how I look. Things look a lot different from a camera than it does when I'm looking down at them. I get to see where I should have rewarded, where I shouldn't have, what I missed, how my timing is etc. I also get to hear how stupid I sound :rofl1: huge plus

I've been working super hard on getting Didgie to not offer a million things and instead trying to get a little calmer thinking approach. But, she's not a Mia and I think Paps look like they are vibrating just when standing still sometimes

Yeah calm thinking is not Mia's forte. At leas tit amuses the other people in class. I've been carrying Mia to the start line and someone asked last week if I realized that Mia started running well before I put her down on the ground.

I don't think she'll ever be a sit and think things through before acting kind of dog.

Oh and I hate seeing myself on video too. I always try to cut me out of the dog videos. I'll probably do something wonderful like fall over a jump.

I started my foray into free shaping today. I. LOVE. IT.

I figured teaching back up would be a good place to start it, and Maggie is doing so, so well. My only question is, when do I start to pair a verbal cue? She's catching on quickly to free shaping, and she's already taking several rapid steps back pretty consistently.

I'll try to start videoing my sessions!

Yay!! You add the verbal cue when the behavior is where you want it. For instance if you want "Backup" to mean back up 3 steps, you would add it when your dog is reliably backing up 3 steps.

Putting a cue to Travelers back leg lift. Pee!

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I'm loving this thread! I've been very uncreative lately and haven't been able to come up with anything to teach my dogs. After watching some of these videos though I am super motivated to go home and teach somebody something new. Now, if I just knew where my clicker was... I've neglected it for a few months.

Limit's first session. He's got mad crazy ADD and is SO HAPPY all the time. I am just keeping things moving to keep him engaged in this video, aka trying to teach him learning is fun! Plus, he hadn't had kibble really so he had no idea how to take it out of my hand, hence, the reward was not that rewarding LOL Now, a couple of weeks later, he is much better and more focused and knows how to take kibble - but I don't have the video proving that yet
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Hold, session 4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1UDemPstJA

She held it on her own!!!

Omg Trav's pee trick is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!! ^.^ I love him

Limit is horrifically cute!

Ok, so not a trick but some self control work and mat work all in one.

For reference this is what Didgie thinks of the broom

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She can stay in a room alone for ages barking her head off and biting a broom leaning against the wall.

This is what we did tonight

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