Enough vacations, time for new tricks!
1. heeling: make the "glued to the leg" exercise more like heeling: still do different kind of turns, but also some normal forward walking in different speeds (slow, normal, fast) to teach them to adjust and keep the right position in every situation
2. figure 8 backward: tell the dog to go into heel position and start spinning as we were doing on the target, then very suddenly stop and step back with the other leg (if the dog is at left side - with right leg), you can also make a gesture with left hand to try to get them to keep circling below the heeling position, eventually all the way around you leg, so that they come backwards between your legs back into front position. If the dog insists on staying in heel position, you can help with the hand a little bit, lure his head out (left for 90 degrees if the dog is on left side) and say back to have them back up in your direction. Step back with the other leg enough to have them back up between your legs. Reward and tell them to heel on the other side (right) and repeat the process. As soon as you get some smoothness with that, stop rewarding for coming in between, always first tell them to come to the other leg and reward at your side in order to avoid having them back up too far - they need to stay very close to your legs all the time.
3. skateboarding: try to find a skateboard (kids department) and reward for making it move with front feet. Don't reward 4on, but 2 or 3, the criteria is they make a skateboard move.
4. cik&cap: find a table leg, dog-food container, traffic cone or similar and shape the dog to go around it - first just a step, then two or three circles, both directions (you can reward both right from the start if you are getting it - if not, start with just one, but then on one session, don't reward that direction anymore but wait for the other)
5. fade the object for side legs: if the dog is already heaving both legs up at the same time, click&reward that before he even touches the object, so that he understands the idea is picking them up, not touching something. At the same time, try changing objects as much as possible. Going to vertical objects shouldn't be too difficult, then go to "empty" objects like a chair that looks like an object, but doesn't really offer much support, so at this point, the dog is already free-standing, the object is just there for mental support. Next step in table leg and then you don't need an object anymore. For free handstand, you go through the same process, only that it takes longer as it's physically more demanding - you can start working on it, but do not rush it, especially not with young puppies!
6. don't forget on recalls and playing, stays with distractions (you can combine it all in a really fun game), try the hug on a plastic bottle or something similar that is light enough for the dog to hold it and have them hold it independently, add more steps to backing up from you, tape the 4in the bowl trick again so that I can see to what size you managed to get: the smaller the better! And if you need some more ideas, you can also try balancing ON the object (4on vs. 4in) 🙂
And most importantly: have fun!
Have fun!
Our handstand progression:
This is a vid of Grace skateboarding when she was about 7 months old. My friends were skateboarding at the beach and grace essentially stole a skateboard and stole the show!
She hasn’t been on a skateboard since and when we tried today she initally thought i wanted her to stand on it and pivot around (she is obsessed w pivoting!). After a few min she was pushing it along w front feet. I’m going to try to go back to the start and shape 3 legs on bc i think it looks amazing when the dogs just push off w one leg. See how we go..
Also wondering how to cue side legs trick. I think G & I aren’t great w purely verbal commands and i’m having trouble getting her to differentiate bt when i want her to lift left legs vs right legs. Do you use any hand signal as well or just verbal?
Wow, she is naturally talented skateboarder!!! It’s impressive what she all showed! The spins are really cool and I loved pushing with left leg and then switching to the right leg, I never saw those switches with my dogs, it’s very cool!
For side legs, I show with a left finger towards right shoulder when I want right legs and with right finger towards left shoulder when I want left legs, I’m terrible at naming things…
Ah, I’m so glad to hear you are bad at naming things too. I get so lazy w it. Fingers towards the shoulder are working really well.
I’m glad you liked her skateboarding! Yeah, i thought she was pretty creative. As a very small pup i had rewarded her a lot for being near, showing interest in skateboard, and pushing w front legs a bit. But, when she had creative licence she came up with things i would never have thought of teaching her. Skateboarding definitely suits her personality
to day Felix do the handstand on the wall !
it’s a difficult trick him, so i am very happy
Great job! Always fun to see his wagging tail! Jack Russels are the best dogs ever for handstand, all the best handstands I saw were by JRTs, so keep working on it, I think he will be great! He has great style, so you can soon SLOWLY start fading the wall!
Hi Silvia.
We are doing good with heeling, cik&cap, and skateboarding.. but
I am a little stuck with Side legs up and backward weave.
(I might fade out the target object a little too early.. or my hand signal is not good in backward weave..)
Wow, that’s sure a very small bowl for such a big boy! It brings back the memories of what a puppy he was on your first video with that trick… 🙂 It was so much fun to watch him growing up, he is a really cool pup! I think he is doing good enough with side legs to keep working with the wall -- you got some really good ones, so I think understanding is there now, all you need now is patience to give him time to find the balance that will allow you to slowly add more duration. I also think he is doing great for a first session on backward weaving! 🙂 You can stop rewarding for coming inbetween and start rewarding at your side now and then eventually don’t reward every time he comes to the side anymore to allow him to get more fluent with the weaving. -- But as I said, that sure went GREAT for the first session!
Thank you Silvia.
Yes, inside of the bowl is smaller than out side so it is actually small bowl for Niah and I am happy for this size and his great effort 🙂
AND yes. Patience!!
That’s exactly what I need for these tricks. I’ve been a little bit worried about he is working hard for me but not wagging a tail much..
It is just a trick! I will make it even shorter and be silly and have fun when I work with him ! thank you for your advice!
Go Niah!! I don’t think you’re stuck with side legs or backwards weave at all. They look great -- esp side legs, a few of his tries looked awesome! I LOVE his bowl trick and the way he jumps his back legs in (I wish G dog wld do that). I saw him show off and almost try to do a freestanding handstand 🙂 Koto is such a good girl in the background
Thank you Cam! Yes. I have a feeling Niah will be able to do free standing hand stand near future! (that would be cool and exciting!)He just loves putting his legs up in any direction (such a boy!) and his balance improved so much since this trick classes!
Sylvia,
Question about getting the hug or hold: We are using a stuffed animal (chipmunk) How do I encourage Stella to PULL the chipmunk to her. She is resting her paws around it but not “holding” or “hugging”
We are so so so so so far behind with our tricks… no side legs up yet--very slow progress because I think we haven’t found the right object to work with, we don’t even have some stacking bowls to work with yet on stacking…
We already had the beginning handstand, but I wonder if she is strong enough to do a real handstand… and what our next step would be to get her to freestand handstand?
Hi Sylvia, What would be the next step in your online class progression for Nero who will be 6 months when we are done with this class. I’m not in a big hurry because I’ll have some cleaning up to do on tricks we haven’t learned completely from this class, but can’t imagine not having accountability like we have with our online assignments. I’m still trying to get Nero on sheep again, but we won’t be able to do more than a lesson or two over the summer as he continues to grow up. Today is skateboard day for our training session. I really liked how one of the dogs really had to use their abs to balance on the board on use one or two legs. Now I really know what I want to shape for.
Nancy
I’m thinking about something like advanced tricks class yes, but I think I won’t have time to work on it until end of summer, so I think it will only start in September/October… Agility foundations will start end of June though, so that would be a nice continuation of this class and his age is about right too. Another option is running contacts class, starting end of August. So plenty of classes available to keep Nero busy! 🙂
Looking forward to see Nero skateboarding!
Hi, Yesterdey night I was taping a video to show ye our difficulties with the stacking bowls trick and ask for advice but as we were taping Darwin had a breakthroug and finally got the idea, so now this is the video where you can see how he mastered the trick….
However, the bad cualifications are for me (as always ;)) because with all the excitement I clicked more times than rewards…ups !!! naughty, naughty….. The reason why I chose the spoon and the small container is because they are too small to allow him gen inside the container…When I presented the bowls at the begining he only thought of getting inside them…
Well, you’re sure doing much better with rewarding after the click as at the beginning! But yes, you sometimes still forget what the click means 🙂 Like when he goes in that small bowl really nicely: that’s definitely something to jackpot, so do give him as many rewards as you did, the only problem was that you were still clicking even when his front feet were out already 🙂 And then the same with stacking bowls: instead of jackpotting putting one object into another with plenty of treats, you were clicking and the rewarding him for eating out of the bowl 🙂 Hm… 🙂 You only click and reward several times if the dog is holding the position. If you are jackpotting, you click once (when all 4 feet are in or when he puts one object into another) and then reward with several treats, no problem if front feet are out already or if all he is doing is eating his treat -- just don’t click it! 🙂 You sure liked eating out the bowl a lot, you click it many, many times! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Remember: you want to click what you want to get. How you reward after the click is up to you, you can give as many treats as you want, but if you want it to be a jackpot, don’t click him for another stuff (such as eating out of the bowl) while doing so!
But yes, he sure mastered the tricks despite clicking it wrongly!!! 🙂 What a smart dog!
Thank you, Thank you very much for the refreshment. As you say I forguet what the click means and I associate it with rewards when is nothing to do….!!! Thanks God, Darwin is helping me a lot to learn as he is such a smart dog! I will keep practicing….
Yes, dogs are really smart, I think they sometimes just guess what we really meant when we click too late or by mistake 🙂
I got my Schapendoespup Kaia last week and have now begun to cklick her. She is SOOOO hungry that she has problems to DO anything but trying to get to the food, but we are working on it and now I will start the class from the beginning 🙂 I’m so excited and eager to start working on it!
Congratulations on your puppy!!! Schapendoes are mostly all very food motivated yes 🙂 Time for #3 lesson1 exercise 🙂
This is a quick vid of Grace waiting on her bed while i play w Glee. This is a really hard trick for Grace, esp when there is a squeeky toy involved. Before we started this course i really don’t think she could have handled staying still while i played w another dog …
Silvia -- i have 2 random questions:
1. How would i teach Grace to bounce? She doesn’t do it naturally and i have only seen her do it once to get a toy. Is it a good idea to teach a big dog this trick?
2. My darling Grace and I have 2 problems. 1. The first one Ive mentioned bf -- running off w high value toys. Even though i have done so much work to improve it it seems to be getting much worse. It is predominantly w her high value tug toys. If she gets hold of them she takes off -- proud as punch w no interest in playing with them w me. It is not until i hide and she can’t find me that she drops the toy and runs to find me (not quite what I’m after) 🙂
The other problem has been an ongoing issue. I can’t leave her inside when i am out bc she gets anxious and eats the house! She chews the walls, doors cupboards and anything wood. (even if she is w another dog) My little termite! I have tried everything i can think of and read everything i can find on the topic but, alas, now that she knows the house is a giant stick … Any ideas?? I leave her outside when I’m out and Ive had to cover the wood outside (weatherboard house) to stop her eating that too.
Im curious -- Where do you leave your dogs when you are out?
I’ve asked some trainers in Australia but i have given up on that bc people seem to have some v odd ideas!! One lady was very helpful, “I’d just give up and send her to the pound”!!! Grace had never been handled bf i got her at 8 weeks, she was locked in a stable w her siblings and has always had separation anxiety issues which are now so much better -- except the wood 🙂
I understand if this is outside of the scope of our course, just thought you might have some advice for me 🙂
Great stay! I think we were discussing bouncing before, my suggestion was to teach her jump over the leg in one and back to another direction… Did you try that? Once she knows to bounce over the leg, you can put it on verbal cue and fade the leg.
I don’t like crates too much, but I think they work really well with separation anxiety issues and from that reason crate my puppies sometimes -- but it’s very easy with puppies. I tire them that much that they fall asleep, put them in a crate and at first leave a crate next to where I am -- and then slowly further&further across the room, then I put it in another room and eventually leave the house. By then, they understand their crate is a nice, safe place, only useful for sleeping 🙂 and I never had a puppy make any noise when I’m gone. Once they get the idea that when I’m gone, we sleep, I leave them free in a house. As nothing ever moves when I’m gone :), I’m pretty sure they sleep on a couch the whole time, I’m pretty sure they don’t even play. Yeah, they don’t have many manners when I’m home :), but they’re never a trouble when alone.
With Grace, I would try something similar: tire her as much as you can and then put her in an x-pen with her bed in it next to you -- and then further&further apart and so on. Did you tried that? Also, how is she when left alone outside? If she is not stressing and stays calm, I think there is nothing wrong with it either. I never let them outside alone as I’m always worried one would get out (not so unlikely with my fence!) and get lost or hit by a car when trying to find me. But if she is used to it and it’s not stressful or dangerous for her, then I think that’s perfectly fine.
Thanks so much silvia!! I don’t really like crates either but i think your use of them is very smart. I have never successfully conditioned Grace that me leaving is for sleeping: Grace thinks me home is for sleeping and when i leave is for stressing. I have tried crates and she is now fine (used to freak out a bit) but i wouldn’t leave her in a crate while i was out for a day, only for 1-2 hrs. I love the idea of the x pen which i haven’t tried and it also gave me the idea to gradually increase the size of the pen until it is the size of the room. Once she gets used to staying in the room and being calm and sleeping when i am away i could gradually remove the pen (it’s just a matter of finding a pen that is sturdy enough not to fall if she jumped up on it)
She is pretty good outside now but we have had to do a lot of work with it. She used to SCREAM when i left. Now she is pretty calm and generally sleeps on top of the table or in her crate which is outside as a kennel. Ive started having a few problems since Glee arrived bc they play like absolute maniacs the whole time i am out -- chasing each other and making a lot of noise and digging up the garden together. Although she is well behaved, the back of the house is covered in chicken wire so that she can’t eat the wood (she ended up in hospital from eating the wood!) so i still can’t really trust her. I would love to be able to leave her at a friend’s place for a few hrs now and then and know that their house was safe! She got out once but just waited at the front gate for me to get home. She loves lazing around the house so i have this fantasy that she could just stay inside warm and relaxed on the couch rather than having to b outside in the cold. Recently she even chewed the door when i went outside to my car for 5 minutes. When it has become such a habit, do you think it is possible to change?
Silly me, i fogot about bouncing over my leg. I’ll try tonight and report back. How do you get a bounce rather than them jumping your leg?
🙂
Hi Camilla,
You can make crate training easier and fun with crate games. Feeding her in the crate, going in and out of the crate, opening and closing the door etc. Put the crate in a room you spend alot of time in like livingroom or office and move it to the bedroom at night and have her sleep in it next to your bed. Put her in it for dinner time, go slowly, just like shaping. Make her think the crate is the best thing in the world, it’s a fun and safe place.
Buddy thinks the crate is his den and goes in it with the door open to take naps.
I hope this helps.
Jen
Thanks Jen,
Yes Ive done quite a lot of crate games with her and she now likes her crate. She’ll go in there w the door open. The thing is that if I’m going to be out for a long time i don’t like to leave her in there.
I know people use crates a lot more in the states (there’s not much of a crate culture in Australia). Do you leave buddy in the crate during the day?
🙂 thanks
Hi Camilla,
I did crate him when I first got him, because I didn’t know if he was a chewer like my old dog. But I started with just very short trips of 15 min, or just him going in the crate and I would leave the room to take out the trash, get the mail etc. He never had a problem with it, and I spent a lot of time making sure he wasn’t stressed about it. The longest he stayed in a crate was 4-5 hours, but that doesn’t happen very often anymore. I do keep up with crate training though; he needs to go in it at the dog training club, and we took him with us on the plane last summer. So, it can be very useful.
My old dog had separation anxiety and a few times I was very worried for his safety and well being with all the things that he chewed and ate; a calculator, shoes, bra elastic, several packs of gum with wrappers, my address book, his bed, my couch….
I wish I would have known about proper crate training back then. He did stop chewing and stressing when he got older; Grace is still a baby, give it some time. The other thing I would do to prevent separation anxiety is not to make a big deal about leaving the house or coming back. When I leave I tell him in a quiet voice and give him a treat, and when I come back I ignore him for a couple of minutes untill he calms down. Well, there’s books about all this so I’ll stop rambling now.
Yes, x-pens are a better idea for bigger dogs and easier to fade by making it bigger. But it’s true that if she tries, she will probably be able to get out of it… But if you get her used to the idea slowly, she might not even try… It’s of course possible to work through it, but it will take longer now that she has been practicing this for a while. It’s scary she would eat so much wood she needed to go to the hospital! What did they need to do? From my dogs, La is obsessed by chewing on sticks in the woods, but she never tried to eat the furniture 🙂
It will probably look more like jumping over at first, but once we get all 4 feet off the ground, you can then shape it in the bouncing direction 🙂
Thanks Silvia! I’ll work hard and see if we can have a breakthrough! Yes, Grace also loves chewing sticks in the bush and i think she accidentally discovered that houses are also just like sticks (an unfortunate discovery!) She had never eaten wood on house until i moved into this house about 9 months ago. The wood on the garage was a bit rotten and exposed. She obviously tried it and got addicted. The unfortunate thing is it took quite a long time for me to realise bc she would eat the wood and leave no trace of it. The vet thought she might have had a bowel obstruction but luckily it passed w oil. Because the wood was sharp it had scratched her trachea so she was making funny breathing sounds. Very scary!!!
You could try Bitter Apple Spray on the wood, or lemon juice or vinegar, but it sounds like you would need a lot of it! 🙂
This is where we are up to w cik/cap. Funny how tricky this was to shape. I think she is still a little unsure whether she is supposed to be circling it or pivoting around it…
Great job!!! Very nice and tight in both directions!
I am so far behind! I lost my 4 year old Aussie Bitch which has devasted me. But I am trying to get back on track with Play. I plan on working extra hard to get caught up. Stay tuned for videos in the next few days.
Val and Play
Sooo sorry to hear about your Aussie… It’s always hard to loose the dog, but especially when they’re that young… I hope Play keeps you busy enough to make those weeks easier! Hugs.
Val--So sorry to hear about your aussie. Looking forward to more Play vids.
Nancy and Nero
Oh Valorie, that is heartbreaking! Thinking of you 🙂