Trick of the Week: Perch

Fiona will get up on things, turn around, sit, 'sit pretty' lured . Sorry for the cell phone pics!

Thanks everyone, for encouraging me to partake in this...she's evolving!

Here is Summer starting from ground 0. She is unaware that she has a back end.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDla5R-MPAQ&feature=share&list=UUEMit_X89sKygjypdATGzYQ

And Mia:

[YOUTUBE]M2nX-7Dwek4[/YOUTUBE]

I love this trick of the week, too. We're getting a lot of mileage out of it at my house. I love how comfortable all the dogs are and how much fun they are having.

Summer reminds me SO much of Pip. Both in the way she works, the tail going all the time, and not knowing she has a back end. He will literally lean so far over that he falls before he will put a back foot up on the stool. So after watching Laurelin's video I found him something else to use, and voila! Proud dog is proud. (Excuse the mess, it's really cold here and we can't do anything outside, so I gave them some stuff to destroy earlier.)

And aheeeeee! Love my big boy. A week ago he was just jumping over it.

And Maisy is like a little monkey. She really surprised me with this trick.

[YOUTUBE]0mpQbpxixWg[/YOUTUBE]

Gusto is going to disown me.

I have towels under it right now so it won't rock much, and, much like his mother, he is using a mounting block to get on his pony (hey, it is better for the horse's back). We just played for a few minutes since I have agility tonight, but was able to get him reaching one back foot up to the "saddle" a few times.

YES GUSTO YES THIS

Maisy looks awesome!!

I cannot wait to see this rocking horse thing reach its conclusion.

This is progressing a bit too quickly.

Aheeeeee Gusto!

Welp, Kaia & I did our 5 minutes of perch work tonight and she stood on her front legs on my back! This is great improvement from her crawling on my back yesterday.

And of course, there was nobody else here to photograph it.

So we'll just have to do it again with the SO gets home.

Bah, this is hard with long legged, long bodied dogs! But I'm going to work on this a lot because I think it's great for Kili's core strength. Also her hock is still not right so I've got her on limited exercise and if I don't do something with her she's going to drive me nuts!

First on a little end table and then on our overturned garbage can. They're about the same size but the circle is a lot harder for her... also probably because it's not as stable and if I don't hold it for her it tips over and dumps her on her ass which she doesn't like.

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Heh, I love it when she's back feet on, front feet off and "where's my treat?" aheheh.

I had the same problem with trying an overturned 5 gal paint bucket. It kept getting tipped over and then they wanted nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The moment when you realise you've actually been doing something for years without even realising it.

I have an abundance of photos of Bodhi 'on' things, but never thought of it as a trick!

I'm going to 'train' it now,and get her to stand on me somehow... She's not fun to train as she's too manic.

Love the foot ones.

Gusto actually managed a little bit of a sit pretty on the rocking horse! Of course I cut his head off every time I tried to get a picture.

In other "I will never teach him to jump on my body for safety's sake" news...

Holy cow, about 3 minutes of training that with my feet resting on a chair, and my legs are TIRED! You guys must all be super buff from this trick!

I don't notice it in my legs (says the runner/cycler who is probably cheating) but I definitely make sure to activate my core while I'm working on it and it's awesome for the abs. Try putting the work more in your lower abs and lower back muscles than your legs!

Clearly "working out with your dog" is my calling in life. For this I will be rich.

My abs are sore too, but that's mostly from Gusto deciding that my diaphragm is the correct place to dismount!

I'll have to pay attention to what I'm doing next time. Nothing felt tired when we were doing it, but 15 minutes later my legs are still feeling it.

YAY GUSTO ON THE PONY

We has knee stall:


This is standing; he isn't really game to sit down from this position though, but that's okay since we're just starting. The only way I can get this right now is to have him on my bed and he'll climb out on my legs one foot at a time - otherwise, from the floor, he will jump the front of his body up, then sorta somehow slide his back end on, so he ends up laying flat on his belly like a fat salamander once he gets up there like DERP I'M ON YOUR LEGS I CAN DOES IT?

Perch! by Julee Paine, on Flickr

Ah ha ha! On the rocking horse. That is so awesome.

All these photos make me wish I had a smaller, shorter dog. The only body part I can see a stall happening on is my back... But at just over half my own body weight... I'm not sure I can support her on my back.