Trick of the Week: Rebound!

Please do get new video! I can't wait to see.

I'm having a hard time fading the leaning on something. I feel like I look incredibly awkward when I do this... holding my foot up, trying hard not to fall down. Fun times.

I like this sequence for the rebound, but I have trouble getting a nice turn on my foot after the spin -- Cohen opens up a lot since, I guess, her balance is off. Plus I have trouble putting a bit of distance between me and her so I don't end up accidentally kicking her in the face.

[YOUTUBE]SaEmvQNsCKQ[/YOUTUBE]

I'm also having trouble working on this anywhere but my "work room". Outside, this becomes a jump/perch type exercise. Once it's warmer, I'll be trying harder to get her to generalize the behaviour in new locations.

Man I love this. I woke up this morning thinking I was going to start working on this, and then low and behold, it's trick of the week! AWESOME!

I think the legion of zoom will sit this one out. I'll either end up in a wheelchair or I'll have huge holes punched in my walls. (And those who were going to suggest trees...The ones that are big enough to support 85 them are surrounded by plantings that would get crushed.)

Have fun and I'll be watching your guys teach this from the sidelines.

Ok, so I'm not sure exactly how to train the foot rebound so I'm kinda winging it. I tend to hate props but for this one I'm using three boards of various sizes, working down from the biggest.

I started with it on the floor against my legs and Didgie rebounding off of it, then higher up and then against my foot while I'm sitting down. Then against my hip, then my knee and then my foot while standing. Rinse and repeat for each size. The smallest board is bigger than my shoes but not huge so I'm hoping the switch between it and my boots will work.

[YOUTUBE]wUyCGTTgXN0[/YOUTUBE]

Great minds!

I have started working on this with Cricket. I will try to get a video of me working with her.

Yeaaaah, all the foot rebounds are looking awesome. That will have to fall into the "maybe someday" category for us...I have tiny feet and Onyx is not entirely tiny. But who knows!

Started working on a normal body rebound (what do you actually call it?), but I wasn't filming (duh!)...it went pretty well! Will have to film some tomorrow, the light is gone for today and I'm having to do this outside.

Question... Does it matter which way the dog rebounds off of you? Are they supposed to turn AWAY from you (laterally) or towards your middle (medially)? Does it matter? Does anyone even understand what I mean? I'm not sure how to describe what I'm asking.

Looks great! Though you may be overthinking it. She has a hip rebound behaviour already, right? Place board on hip, cue rebound, move board to other spots, fade board, profit. Maybe I'm just taking for granted having a dog who'll hit anything with any part of her body.

The hardest part for me was (and continues to be) getting a solid push off your foot on the rebound.


I dunno man. I bet you could do something pretty nifty. Onyx is young yet, so don't rush it, but a hip/chest/back rebound is totally doable.

And I just call it a chest rebound most of the time.


I don't think it matters which way the dog turns. Cohen already had a turn in flyball, so I didn't bother changing anything. And I just happened to start working with her on my left side. I keep things clear by cuing rebounds off my left side and catches off my right.

You can get a feel for what direct your dog prefers to turn by sending them out to retrieve a dead (not moving) ball. Whichever way the dog turns the majority of the time is likely the dog's dominant side. Start working turns in that direction.

Here's a mostly unedited video of our foot rebound practice last night. You can see some of the issues crop up which I'm trying to work out, like her trying to vault off my foot instead of rebound. My goal was to keen turns tight and get her jumping from close up. I threw a couple spins in there too.

Note the PJs and bottle of wine in the background. The chair was more for laziness/comfort than any sort of tactical reason.

[YOUTUBE]eBPmWhZ36ks[/YOUTUBE]

Alright, so I originally thought I'd work a rebound off a wall first and then transfer to me. But honestly, I decided the logistics of that was more difficult than just trying to teach it off of me (namely I can't find a wall that works inside my house).

Then I found that she was always turning towards me... which is why I asked if it matters. Maybe it doesn't ultimately, but she is so long that she was having a really hard time turning when I was sitting right next to her... so I opted to retrain it so that she turned away from me. I think this is going to work better in the long run, but I could be wrong. We'll see.

[YOUTUBE]WvQAciadpLg[/YOUTUBE]

Did another session this morning and her direction of turn is bang on almost every time. Also, no clue why the heck I started saying "HUP" but it really bothers me. lol. So I've had to consciously think to say "Hit" instead from now on.

So we'll see how this goes. I think we're going to be stuck at varying stages of blanket on my leg for quite awhile. She does not want to step on me... which is weird because if I'm just sitting around doing nothing she thinks nothing of walking all over my lap and being annoying. Strange dog.

ETA: Love my new flooring. So does Kili. Except for the sit pretty... apparently it is still too slippery for that. ha.

Lovely! Just a thought - one of the first things I noticed was her collar dangling and jingling. I would take the collar off whenever you're training tricks, especially ones that require a bit of jumping around.

Looks awesome!! Nice and tight, she's being very deliberate about where she's placing her feet.

Soooo, how many tricks are too many to have going on at once?

Currently Indy is doing Hug, Bang your dead, limp dog, and I REALLY WANT to teach this one too

I'm normally doing 3-4 tricks at any one time. Sometimes more, sometimes less but I have a short attention span so I do best having more than one going on at a time.

So, do it!

Sekah, Cohen looks fantastic! Super tight and really consistent. Though, I kept waiting for her to hit you and the chair to spin in a circle

Krissy, she looks like she's getting it! She seemed to get more and more comfortable as the video went on, really impressed!

Here's Didgie today, I'm standing up but bracing myself on the cabinet behind me till I'm more steady. I want to get her doing it more consistently and closer up but as of right now she's doing pretty awesome! She hits it right about 3 out of 5 times but, she needs some distance from me that I want to work on eliminating

[YOUTUBE]pTbOtV8mGe4[/YOUTUBE]

Bah! Didgie and Cohen are ridiculous! So cool! I will be happy if we can get a hip rebound. I'm not super confident that it will happen but we're working on it and we shall see. She's doing well tonight so maybe tomorrow I'll get some more video if she's made any progress. We are seriously going to be working tiny baby steps to get her jumping on me and not the ottoman. There's just really not a lot of space. Lol. I'm little, she's big. It shall be an interesting journey! Lol

Nope. Nope nope nope. I don't have the indoor space for this and I'm not teaching them to do it against the fence, so... we'll sit this one out and marvel at everyone else.

Here is where we are at so far....

[YOUTUBE]G_GkpGp_Fm0[/YOUTUBE]

Amber, I love how enthusiastic she is! She's super cute and I love seeing a video of her.

I might back up a step and be sitting or in more of a sitting position against the wall. She's not getting that turn in that she needs, she hits you and then turns away from you rather than in a circle which is what you want. Instead of throwing the treat away from you bring her back in by rewarding from your right hand.

So you want it to look like her jumping up from your right, turning her body back towards your right as she hits you to complete the turn.

Watch my video I posted in the start of the thread when I'm leaning against my dresser which is about where you are right now.

Ya I definitely see what you are saying. I'll give that a shot. We are going to work more on it tomorrow. And thank you... she definitely is an enthusiastic dog and a blast to train. I wish I was a better trainer because this dog has insane potential.

You totally have enough room! At least to teach Maisy to jump off of you!

But, if you insist on not doing it we're totally coming back to it in the summer when you won't have too litter of room inside as an excuse.