I teach my dogs pretty much everything they need to know via tricks. Afterall, agility, obedience, tracking, disc dog… – it’s all just another dog trick.
Tricks train them to think, to use their body and mind. Tricks teach them that there is no difference between working and playing and gives them the right attitude. Teaching tricks teaches them that they’re the smartest dogs in the world, that there are no mistakes and no failure, that trying things is good. Tricks give them confidence in their thinking abilities and moves, improve their strength, balance and coordination. Tricks build a bond between me and them and create a deeper understanding for them how I think and for me how they think. Tricks make them feel important, smart, confident, needed and bonded with me.
Tricks are very important for young dogs as they learn to use their body and mind that way. They’re also great for cross training of competing dogs, it keeps all the muscle active and strong and prevents injuries. And it’s especially great for old dogs, as tricks keep them mentally and physically active and that’s what keeps them young and healthy.
AND they don’t take much time, space or equipment, so you don’t have any excuse not to teach some tricks to your dog!
Here is the right place to post your videos to give us some ideas, to ask questions on “how to” or ask for a suggestion if you get stuck somewhere on a way.
Here comes one of my favourite videos:
To learn more about tricks, please see my training DVDs on tricks.
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Hi Silvia,
I have made a video from Jimi during his stay at LoLaBu Land and after that. On this video he’s between 4,5 and 5 months and a week.
Enjoy !Grts Tania & Sabine and our LT bc’s
)
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Wow, GREAT!!! He sure is a fast learner!!! Great job!
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Hi Silvia,
My JRT is learning the handstand trick but we’re having difficulty getting it off the wall. H rarely actually leans on the wall for support, but cannot get it off the wall like he does on the wall. We’ve been at this stage for months and we’re really stuck. Any ideas? 0 likes-
Try to go to thinner objects next. Like a thin tree next, then a pole, then a very thin pole, then slowly make a pole thinner&thinner.
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Hi Silvia
I do hope I am not annoying you with my never ending questions, but I have yet another quick one! Please let me know if I am irritating!
On the ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ video you were talking about happy tricks, so I went about teaching speak, spin, and I really want to teach my pup how to just jump straight up in the air like you were showing us. She can jump into my arms, and over things but I am at a loss on how to get her to jump straight up. Any advice? I tried using a target and getting it higher and higher but she seemed to just end up dancing on hind feet in circles (which I admit was super cute) maybe I just need to be more patient? I don’t know, wondered how you trained your dogs to do it. Thank you so so so much!
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Well, with Bu I just shaped it out from that jumping up with front feet she does when excited. With Le, I captured it, she will do it on her own when I get home or in the morning. And with La, I first had her jump over my leg and then faded the leg. Hope that helps!
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Very much thanks! I think how you did it with la will work best for us.
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Hi Silvia!
Spur is very close to an independent hand stand. He is sometimes reaching up with his back legs pretty nicely, but occasionally nearly falls over back wards (I catch him, of course
). I think that he now needs to figure out how to use his nose as support? It looks like La does that? Did she just eventually figure it out or did you teach it somehow?
Thanks!!! Amy 0 likes-
Sounds great! I didn’t specifically teach her that, but I always keep my hand with treats on the ground and also reward on the ground, so that sure keeps their noses down
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Hi, how do you teach your dogs to stand on your shoes in the air?
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I 1st teach it as a 4on trick on smaller&smaller objects, then I teach jumping on small&shaky objects – higher&higher – and then try feet when I get to that height
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Hi Silvia!
Hope winter isn’t too hard over there in Slovenia, here in France we’ve had unusually tough days of snow, and that’s given me plenty of time to get along with foundation tricks with Ever as you advised before.
She is a great skateboarder now, closes all types of doors and drawers, barks, twitsts, and so many other fun stuff! But I happen to be stuck with your basic front feet on an object and circle with hind feet (foundation for heeling). Here’s my problem: she climbs nicely on the object, and moves her hind feet around so she comes facing me, but them I can’t seem to be able to get her to move from that position facing me.
I don’t really want to lurre her because, as you said before, shaping is better for her understanding, so I tried clicking every tiny weight shift of her rear, then any tiny movement of hind feet, than any lateral step, but I can’t get ahead from this.
What I get after a week’s work is a weird (but quite funny!) kind of “bottom dance” from left to right and back again, but no more than 2 or 3 lateral steps each time, so she can saty facing an staring at me. So I suppose I screwed up something…
My assumptions are: I’ve been rewarding from my hand all the time (me standing close to the object), maybe I should move the reinforcement zone elsewhere?
I clicked any lateral steps in any direction so now she keeps on going left and then back to the right and so on, so maybe I should choose one direction and clik steps only in the chosen direction?
I noticed once I dropped an treat on the floor by accident, so she got down from the box to fetch it and when she got back she had to turn her bottom half the way around to face me, so I jackpoted that, was it OK? Should I put more movement in the exercice by sending her away form the box and back again so I can reward more steps?
Anyway I would really appreciate any tip to get us unstucked…
Thanks a lot!!!
Love,
Marie 0 likes-
Ooops! Forgot to log in! Sorry!
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Oh, that’s a typical problem that is addressed to more detail in Heeling video, but yes, you need to always reward with a head turned away from you to teach her turning a head away is o.k. (so present a treat from the side rather than from in front) – you can also click it when she offers it on her own. You can also stop clicking one direction for now and revisit it once the other direction is fluent. Happy to hear you’re having fun with the tricks!
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Ok, thanks sooo much for the tip! I will try that tonight and tell you how it’s going! And thanks for sharing advice ever so kindly and rapidly in spite of all the work you must have already.
Love,
Marie 0 likes
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Hi Silvia what do you think of his attitude towards tricks?
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That was sure fun!!! Very cool little dog and great tricks! Great job!!!
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I just wanted to say thank you for all the great tricks videos! I don’t know how I’d stay sane without them… my 5 months old puppy is all over the place & wild, but we are having so much fun learning tricks. It’s great to constantly get new ideas for things to keep him occupied.
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Oh, great, happy to hear you and your puppy enjoy the tricks so much! It sure is super fun and great for bond building!
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I immediately want to join Alexandras “thank you”, Silvia – it’s just wonderful to obtain so much input, ideas and inspiration with your work. During the present brake in Puppy Class March, we make huge progresses (and mega fun) with improving the course contents and developing new ideas by all your other actions and suggestions.
Never had so much joy with a dog before (and we never supposed that to be increasable at all ).
It is great to follow your inspiration!
Best regards
Melinda, Malaika and Ingrid 0 likes-
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For embedding a video, press “enter” (go in a new line) after you are finished with a text and copy a link into the same box as the text.
Looking forward to see your tricks, I’m running out of ideas lately!
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Hi
Thats exactly what I did. I made sure I went onto a new line and pasted the embed code in the box under the text…nothing…:(
A lot of the tricks in this vid are double tricks involving both dogs at the same time.
I’ll try again, here goes. I have pasted the text below this…if it doesn’t show, I am at a loss. The code is showing at the moment before I submit the comment. 1 likes -
And it didn’t work again…
Will have to make do with this…
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Your double tricks are amazing! How long took to learn your dogs to be so synchronised? It looks really good
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Looks great! I wish my BCs would agree which toy is from which one. Unfortunately, Bi thinks the one Bu has should actually be hers…
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Haha, yes, I’m lucky in that respect. These two were flyball dogs and sleet being 3 months older than wren and more pushy in personality and stronger drive, she wouldn’t let wren take a ball as a pup and so wren stopped even trying. As I wanted wren to learn to get a ball, I had to clicker train the whole process with a bit of back chaining for good measure. Once she got into it, I could start using a ball as reward rather than it being a task with the reward of treats.
They were doing well at flyball but I quit for reasons other than them.
The reason I mentioned this was because I only used to throw one ball which is sleets. Wren would never pick it up first but would wait for sleet to pick it up and then chase her, grab the rope thats attached to it and then tug with sleet as she tried to return to me. I didn’t want to encourage the chase behaviour because it can transfer to chasing the dog in the other lane when doing flyball racing…and so I taught Wren to go after her own ball. Sleet is only interested in her ball and isn’t bothered about the new one I introduced to Wren. I suppose I am lucky in that respect. It was just a case of encouraging wren to chase her own and leave sleet alone. She still has a little desire to want to chase after Sleet but manages to not do it for the most part. Her ball drive can still be a bit relaxed on occasion depending on how you play with her but, fortunately, she still seems eager enough to do the tricks.The double tricks don’t take as long as you’d think. They can be awkward at first, especially when one of your dogs always wants to be doing what the other should haha, but like with the roll over and jump circle where they are each doing a different thing at the same time, you notice I’m still using quite noticeable hand signal for the rolling dog and they’ve gotten used to the fact that they only roll when they are on that side and the other jumps over them. I like double tricks because it means we can all take part together.:D
I’ll have to get some more of their stuff filmed. They are both currently learning to skip as in the gait (Hop once on each leg before transferring to the other and repeating that side) like what humans do rather than with a rope. They do it in heel position and sync their gait to mine….not perfectly yet but we’re working on it.
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There’s two versions of my above post due to my continuing dumbness and not replying in the correct box. Will you please remove this and the other long duplicate post near the top which is out of place? Sorry for my bodge-ups. I will get used to posting correctly…eventually.
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I am so inspired to teach my bc Sophie after seeing you with your bc’s. Awsome!!
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I am really impressed! Well done!
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Oops, i thought the picture would be the avatar.. *blushes*
Anyway, thats my miniature schnauzer waving in the picture. I have a slight difficulty with her. She is for starter afraid of the clicker, so i have to teach everything by trying to lure her into doing the trick and show and support which can be a little difficult sometime. And since i wanna use the clicker on the next dog i get whenever that will be, i cant have an older dog thats scared to death of the clicker så my question is, how do i teach her that the clicker is a positive thing?
Ive tried to use a pen, ive tried to hide the clicker in my pocket, ive tried to hide it in TWO grill gloves and feeding her minced meat at the same time.. which ended up in her puking. She’s 6 years old now, and she’s a real lady. I cant even get her to roll over
And as if that wasnt enough, she has a mind of her own what tricks to practice from day to day basis. I feel like a beginner compared to everyone here, especially since i dont even know how to add music or text to the video. So i warn you that the video is a little boring, but to make it a little easier to follow i added the order of the tricks in the information box
She’s my first dog so we do our best to get better
//Mariah & Ixxi from Sweden
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Hello
Lots of dogs are afraid of the clicker but that doesn’t mean you can’t “Clicker” train them. The only thing about an actual clicker is that it makes a unique sound that the dog doesn’t otherwise hear.
You can use “Clicker” words. With my two girls, one of them works for the clicker and also for the word “Yesss”, said quickly with an extended “SSSS” sound on the end…I wouldn’t normally say it like that in general speech. The other also works for “Yess”, but, instead of the clicker, I make a higher pitched “Boo” sound myself….this works just like using the clicker….so do something like that instead…doesn’t need to be a click.Saying all this, Sleet knows what Wrens “Boo” sound means and Wren also knows what the clicker means as they watch each other training. Even though they don’t normally have each sound used on each other, if I go and make a bodge up and accidentally use the wrong sound with the wrong dog, they still respond just like they do with their own sound….they they’ve obviously figured out what each others sounds mean.
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You can clicker train without a clicker! Just use a specific word or sound! And the puppy, you can condition to both and then use a clicker when older dog is not present and a sound when she is. Have fun!
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