School time for our puppies! Here is your first to-do list. The first task might sound a little silly for those with adult dogs, but in fact, it's never silly to make a recall even better!
1. call your dog at least 10 times a day to do something fun together: to play, to go out, to get a treat, something to chew on or a new exciting toy
2. put a plate (or another object, but I like to start with a plate as puppies can't chew on those too easily) on a floor and shape a puppy to touch it with a front paw: you can first click for head movement in the right direction, then one/two/three steps, then stepping over it or close to it and finally for stepping on it
3. sit on a floor and put a fist full of treats or dog's favourite toy right in front of their nose, wait till they stop sniffing and click for anything they try other than getting directly to the food/toy or staring at it. It's very important the dog understands staring at food/toy doesn't get him anywhere as it will later on allow you to work with food/toys in your hand without distracting the dog's focus from the job at hand.
4. find a box or a drawer that is as long as your dog and not too high and shape a dog to put 1-2-3-4 legs into it. Then try with smaller&smaller objects, final goal is the dog can stand in a small bowl.
5. observe your puppy and see if he sometimes stretches his legs out when in down position, puppies often do that when relaxed or playing. Name it (I call it "frog":) and reward. It's a nice stretching exercise and very easy to get it on cue if the dog does it naturally (some dogs do it as adults too, but mine didn't and it was much harder to train it as with puppy Le who was doing that naturally). If not, put a dog in a down position and reward from the floor and so far ahead that the dog needs to stretch out to get it - but not so far that he would crawl ahead. Watch the hind legs and click for moving them back OR out, but NOT for crawling step forward.
Looking forward to see your videos!
Ok, here’s our video. She can do the 2-paws-on a target but I realized I still have to make a video of that. What we have here is the box trick at an early stage, the hand with food which we had already practiced and the first attempt to the frog trick… I think we will be stuck for a while on that one!
Have fun you all!
(Valori, I had connection problems; it wasn’t your video)
Cool! Time for a smaller box! 🙂 As for frog trick… She never does it in normal life, when relaxed? Most puppies do. With adults, it’s much harder. IT went pretty quickly with La, but with Bu, I actually first had to teach it in “dead dog” position and then slowly rotated her back, keeping the stretched back hind feet. Quite a long process for her -- one session trick for Le.
No, Silvia. I’ve never seen her doing it. I think it will be more like Bu.
Did you watch the video I shared on FB to see our progress? 🙂
Hi Everyone, Nero is sleeping right now, but I’m stalking him for when he wakes up to capture the “frog”. He did this morning, but I wasn’t prepared! It’s a good thing I work from home.
Nancy and Nero
🙂 When not prepared, I mark it anyway with my voice and play with a closest available object 🙂 My puppies usually did it when already tired, but still playing with a toy on a couch, not too hyper anymore, but in more sleepy mode.
Hi all i am not part of the videos as i signed up to late but thought i could put up a photo. Hope this is ok Silvia if not please say, thanks. I have been doing the box and then smaller for a while and now she has it in a small tub. For me the 2 feet on a plate should be different for the dog with the box or tub having sides even if it is low starting big and decreasing as some of you have said. Then the froggie she is doing quite nicely too. cool happy training all, this is such fun watching all the videos and reading comments.
Cool! Almost there!
Cool Thank you. will work more on it.
Hi Spy in the tub.
i try again
Amazing!
thank you
Hi everyone.
We’re working on the “4 paws in a box” now. Here is a summary of our sessions.
Right now I think that I should click for smaller steps if I don’t want to get her to frustrated (barking). Also I think she is still searching for the right thing to do. I think she knows that it is about standing in the box, but not sure if it should be all 4 paws. What do you think?…
The ‘frog’ is a challenge… 🙂
Have fun,
Sandy
She sure gets angry with you for not clicking enough very quickly! I quite agree with her though, I do like to click more for new tricks, maybe you could indeed progress a little slower to have higher reinforcement rate. To me, it actually looks like she understands the tricks already, but is still searching for the best technique to do it, this last object was already pretty small. Great job for two days!
ok great! thanks! 🙂
Just had a session in the smallest box with about 20 clicks and only 2 small barks. We’re going great! :))
Hi everybody!
We did 2 paws on a plate tonight. (Fortunately I was not the only one who misunderstood :-D)
But what should I do when Jin put her hind leg up? Just ignore right? I try not to click when she does this, but sometimes it goes to fast. She often tends to do more other tricks in one……. (Although.. it looks kind of funny, I try not to laugh about it ;))
Tomorrow we will start with 4 paws in a box! You’re all doing great on that trick!
I send my boyfriend away…. I forgot to tell him to take his telephone 😉
Jonina & Jin
Looks great! And yes, you can simply ignore the hind leg. When you click fast enough and then several times in a position real quick and then out of position, she doesn’t even have time to do it 🙂
Okey, here’s our first video. We started with number 4. We have actually allready done this trick with a smaller box, but it was a while ago, so I thought we’d start out relatively easy. Should have gotten a deeper box though, since it didn’t even last for one session before it broke 🙂
Also, I have a question about the length of the videos. Do you mean max. 5 minutes for each trick or max. 5 minutes for all the tricks that include lesson 1?
5min per trick is still o.k., but really not more than that. This trick can kill some boxes yes:) Try to click a couple of times for staying in a box, you want some more duration to really practice balance.
we started with the frogtrick, and its very difficult with my adult dog. She knows crowling, and she moves her hindlegs fast under her body instead of stretching them. I click for a long back and tail, and when I can see one hindleg. I don’t know if it will work one day with stretching, but we try, and train a few sessions a day. The rest she almost know. She can stand with four feet in a little bowl, and front feet on a plate is no problem too. The last trick I teached was free handstand, and Alice does it very nice 🙂
Hi. Our 2 paws on a plate… well actually a frisbee, and 4 in a smaller box.
Bye!
Laura & Shape
Looks ready for next size! Love that hook on the tail, I can guess the pedigree based on that tail 🙂
😀
Morning guys,
Here it comes my first video.
It is a little bit longer than expected but at the moment I am searching some good application to customize my videos because they are a bit messy! 🙂 I cannot stop talking to him and moving around!!! 🙂 (I should be the one inside the box and he would be great clicking me around :)). Anyway, the first video is two days ago practicing the 2on and the second one is a bit of everything together as we have been doing the box trick for a while now so I added some combinations extra with other tricks (I hope it doesnt matter, otherwise, Silvia please tell me).
httpv://www.youtube.com/user/MsEmillan?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/m6fJu3LMyrY