Trick of the Week: Perch

Airn

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#41
Not recent but Gwen can perch! She sleeps on the back of the couch often.


Im not sure what I'll train her. I have an idea but it could be dangerous so... not sure. I couldn't do a footstall. Maybe I'll find a bucket.

How long are you spending on training? I don't want to overdo it.
 

Laurelin

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#42
I got inspired and decided to do some work with the girls today. We're at baby steps right now, lol.

Mia:

I got her perching on objects much shorter length-wise than her. It took no time at all because we've done a lot of work getting her in smaller and smaller boxes with all 4 feet so this was a piece of cake.

I did get her on a wobbly surface and she is doing great! Very confident about it.

The issue we're having was when I tried to get her to start perching on ME. I put my legs up on the top of the box to get her to just get used to standing on me. End goal would probably be perching on my knees since a foot stall would be too tall for her. She keeps jumping over me and I know a lot of that is from training her to jump over my arms and legs if I hold them out. How do you guys begin the transition from perch on an object to perch on you?

Summer:

Oh boy. Apparently I've never worked on getting all 4 of Summer's feet on an object. She keeps pivoting on it with her front feet or backing up to it or jumping over it. I cannot get her to keep all four on it and when she does (her object is Summer length), it doesn't click and she's back to pivoting or something. My favorite thing she was doing was putting her front feet on it then banging her feet into it. I may just teach her to play the drums or something.

Summer can be smart but sometimes things confuse her, lol.
 

Sekah

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#44
How do you guys begin the transition from perch on an object to perch on you?
The quickest, easiest method is have the perch object nearby. Do some rapid fire rehearsals of the behaviour on an object, then move straight to asking for it on you. Move to/from rehearsing on the object as needed during the session.

E: It's hard to say how long/often I work on something since I tend to have quite a few things on the go, and my interest in working on something specific will wax & wane. When I'm making a concerted effort to work on something I probably focus on it pretty intently about 10-15 minutes a day. I tend to over-train though, and most dogs would do just fine with <5 minutes/day.
 

Oko

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#45
For trick of the week we probably spend 20 minutes in all training it, broken into a couple minutes. It's hard to say because I throw all the training in with just playing and don't plan, ha.

And I have to say this is a hilarious trick to train Feist in. The bucket is kind of small so she has to really work to balance and get a hind leg onto it, this last session we did she started consistently offering three legs on and was trying to get the fourth. This is nice because it's a trick that actually taxes her brain.

And I love looking at everyone else's perches they're awesome!!
 
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#46
Cause shoes are stupid.



AKA: Forgot I'm not wearing shoes and love that my dogs land so lightly on their feet that it didn't matter.

How do you guys begin the transition from perch on an object to perch on you?
I work on the idea of "ON" being solid. They get told a lot to "UpUp" which means get onto something that I gesture to. They also know over means jump over something. So honestly I have very little difficulty after doing all that in getting them to use me as a perch.

Sekah's idea is very similar to how I teach stuff like this too.

For footstall stuff I had them on a stool so they were also already in the mind frame of "Getting on things" But even then I shaped it mostly. They touched my feet with one paw *Click*, two paws *click*, three paws *click* and since they were already elevated they weren't thinking about jumping over anything. I think using small steps and approximations along with absolutely no reward for jumping over you would be your best bet.

Im not sure what I'll train her. I have an idea but it could be dangerous so... not sure. I couldn't do a footstall. Maybe I'll find a bucket.

How long are you spending on training? I don't want to overdo it.
If you're just starting out with that type of stuff I would start small and not be looking at something like a footstall until she has better balance and core strength.

I typically do it for a couple repetitions a few times a day. So when I was just starting off I would have them do it two or three times for various lengths two or three times a day. Though that's after they get it. When I'm still shaping it the sessions are about five minutes long.
 

Oko

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#47
Here is Feist's 2nd session of perching on a bucket. :)

[YOUTUBE]ZFsJhMEG3DU[/YOUTUBE]
 

Shai

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#48
I work on the idea of "ON" being solid. They get told a lot to "UpUp" which means get onto something that I gesture to.
Pretty much the same here. The dogs all know "Up" means "climb up on _____" because I use it all the time so I just laid down in a room with nothing climbable, patted my shins and said "Up" and Webby scrambled up on, haha.

Linds said:
If you're just starting out with that type of stuff I would start small and not be looking at something like a footstall until she has better balance and core strength.
I'll second this too. Fitpaws is super for building the requisite body control and awareness, btw.
 

Beanie

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#53
So we're working on a knee stall, I guess it's called. Payton will get up there but he mostly just kind of lays flat LOL. I'm trying to get him to stand up and he's just not convinced. I shifted to laying on the floor and putting my legs on the bed so they won't move, see if I can't get him to feel confident with that and then start moving away from the bed.

Auggie almost immediately jumped up on my legs, and he'll sit, but his butt and front paws are on my legs and his hind legs are sprawling out to the side. =P Trying to get him to stand up just results in him whacking my knees and scratching my legs and barking at me. Ohhhhhh Auggie...
 

Sekah

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#54
Great work with Auggie. :3

Can someone post a video of a shoulder stall? I'd like to see one in action.

... I guess I could just youtube it, but you guys are more interesting.
 

Sekah

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#55
Also, I have a theory that teaching a perch/foot target on a progressively smaller target/bowl can result in a handstand if the requisite strength is there. I haven't tried it myself, but figured I'd share.
 

Laurelin

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#56
Yeah my dogs know to jump on things generally speaking however I guess all the work I've done with ME particularly she is supposed to jump over me.

I'll have to get a video of Mia. She cracks me up.
 

Babyblue5290

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#57
How's the foot stall coming with him?
Sorry for such a late reply, it's been one heck of a week. >_<

I haven't had the chance to work on it in a week or more because we had to go down to western washington and there are so many dogs there I can't work on much without being surrounded lol

Before we left he was doing pretty good, we are currently working on building his muscle up a bit and balancing on different objects which really helped. The biggest thing we have to work on his him not throwing himself at my feet the moment I put them up and then come crashing down on my face. T_T lol He needs some more impulse control.

I've also started laying on my belly with my legs bent so my feet are in the air and having him jump and balance on that to give him some more practice balancing without worrying about falling too far. That seemed to help a lot.

I'm going to try again for the first time in a week tonight, so we'll see how it goes!
 
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#58
It is possible my judgment may have been impaired when this decision was made.



On the plus side... sure he's heavy, but (and at the risk of opening myself up to crude jokes) at least those long legs are sorta like safety nets. And after a dog this big has been walking around on your back, it kinda feels like you've just had a deep tissue massage.

 

Babyblue5290

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#59
This is Art's perch work. He was working on this before and now he's really good at staying while david lifts him up and moves him around.


DSC_0406 by babyblue5290, on Flickr

David helped to get pics of Talon, this is David on his stomach with knee's bent. Our legs/feet are more stable that way lol


DSC_0428 by babyblue5290, on Flickr

And on David on his back with legs up


DSC_0436 by babyblue5290, on Flickr


DSC_0442 by babyblue5290, on Flickr

He's a bit shaky still getting on our legs when they are straight up, but that may be because he just spent the last week playing constantly with Zoe lol We are working on making our legs less shaky too lol

HAHA That's so awesome, I love how he's carefully placed his feet so he's not on you at all! ^_^
 
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#60
Very rudimentary, but he's getting it!



Right after this I tried to work on sitting pretty and completely fudged it :mad: I kept accidentally clicking too early and catching him when he was jumping UP, rather than sitting back on his haunches. My timing has just been so blah lately, I'm out of practice (though I think some of it with stuff like this is that he doesn't any core strength built up).
 

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