Trick training question

[mollygirl1975]

I was reading the tricks and training thread and was watching some of the videos that were posted to and I am amazed at the ability of these dogs to learn all these neat tricks. I have never owned a dog up until 2 years ago, and I don't have the slightest clue how to teach tricks. We currently have two dogs. Wiggles is a 3 year old long haired chihuahua/dachshund mix. When we adopted him from our neighbors, he already knew some basic commands such as sit, stay, lay down, and roll over.

Four months ago we rescued a pitbull puppy that some friends of our son's found in a field near our house. She is now 9 months old. Her name is Molly. I have taught her how to sit and stay, and most recently how to shake my hand. Her learning to shake caught me by surprise because I was kind of just playing around with her and took her paw a couple of times and said shake, then the next time I said it without grabbing her paw she put her paw in my hand. She loves to shake now and will happily do it when given the command, or if you just simply put your hand out.

Seeing her willingness and ability to learn so quickly just from me playing around and not being serious at all about teaching her that trick made me wonder what else I could teach her. After seeing all those videos of dogs doing all those amazing things, I really would love to teach Molly some fun tricks, but I have absolutely no idea how to even begin. I don't know if I need to start with certain tricks and work my way up with her, or how all of that works. I would love to know everything there is to know about training my dog to do tricks as well as basic obedience. Any information that you all can give me would be greatly appreciated

Kimmy

 

[Aleron]

This is a good starting point for learning more about trick training:

http://www.lolabuland.com/training-videos/tricks/

And:
http://www.silvia.trkman.net/

And to learn more about the how-to's of the methods used to teach these tricks, I suggest Sue Ailsby's Training levels free e-book: http://sue-eh.ca/page24/page26/page10/

 

[lizzybeth727]

My favorite book about training tricks is "Idiot's Guide to Dog Tricks."

 

[mollygirl1975]

Thanks for the suggestions. I appreciate it very much.

Kimmy

 

[Taqroy]

If you pick a certain trick and let us know I'm sure people could give you ideas on how to start working on it. I had to do that when I was first got started training - I still ask for help on how to refine a lot of behaviors! The Chaz hive mind is a fantastic resource.

 

[mollygirl1975]

I found a book that looks like it is really going to help. It is called 101 Dog Tricks. Right now I am working on the basic obedience with her. She already knows how to sit on command, but she doesn't know down, stay, or come. I just worked with her for about 5 minutes on down, and she picked it up very quickly. I am using the clicker to mark the behavior as well. I am just truly amazed how fast she learned the down command. I was excited to show my husband and he said "There is no way she learned it that fast." I had her show him and he is just as amazed as I am. I think training her the basic obedience things will work out wonderfully for her, and teaching her all the neat tricks are going to be lots of fun. She seemed to really enjoy the short training session because when I would get up and reach for her collar to get her to get up, she seemed so excited and eager to do it again.

Kimmy

 

[lizzybeth727]

Sit, down, stay, and come are all just tricks too! Dogs don't know the difference!

Glad training's going well!

 

[mollygirl1975]

Lizzybeth ~ you are so right. I never really thought of it that way.

After the training, I fed her dinner in her crate as per usual evening routine. When I let her out, the first thing she did after she came out of her crate was sit down and look at me with this look like she was eager to do more training. Maybe I am reading more into it than is really there, but she has never done that before. It was like she was sitting there waiting for me to tell her what to do next. Having those big brown soulful eyes looking at me like that made my heart swell with so much love for her. She is such a sweet girl and I would do anything for her.

Kimmy

 

[lizzybeth727]

After the training, I fed her dinner in her crate as per usual evening routine. When I let her out, the first thing she did after she came out of her crate was sit down and look at me with this look like she was eager to do more training. Maybe I am reading more into it than is really there, but she has never done that before. It was like she was sitting there waiting for me to tell her what to do next. Having those big brown soulful eyes looking at me like that made my heart swell with so much love for her. She is such a sweet girl and I would do anything for her.

That's awesome! It sounds like she wanted to do more of that "training game thing" with you! You're doing it right if she's asking for more!

 

[mollygirl1975]

I am glad to know that her being eager to do more is a good sign that I am doing it right. We did another session tonight after I got home from work while dinner was in the oven. I started out repeating what we did last night (down), and then worked with her the remainder of the time on stay. She learned it very quickly. At first I was wondering if she was actually bored and not interested since every time I told her to stay, she would end up laying down. I decided to put her to the test. I ended up opening the door to the room we were in and walked down the hall after telling her to stay and she didn't move. Yay! Then my husband came in and asked how things were going, and I asked him if he wanted to do a few sessions of "stay" with her. He really put her to the test. One of her favorite games to play with him is hide and seek. He will get her attention, then duck behind a corner or some furniture, and she will immediately come running to find him. So he gave her the command to stay, and he went down the hall and hid behind the corner for about 5 seconds. He peeked around the corner and she was still laying there. So he walked to her, told her good stay and gave her a jackpot of treats for being so obedient. I bet that was really hard for her to do since she loves playing hide and seek with him, but she mastered it with flying colors.

Kimmy