What Trick Are You Teaching Your Dog

[denali]

Kokoda has recently progressed to a handstand against the wall :)

Also was very happy with myself for finally teaching play dead.

Deniki has just mastered a roll over he used to always get stuck.

And at dinner tonight he learnt to bow and to jump into my arms

Henry is a little slower and just likes to bark at me

[Roova]

Nice, there's some clever dogs and people in this thread!

I'm only new to trick training and Poppy is a 9 month old terrier.

I really struggle getting distance to my tricks and getting action based on the trick name only. Id love some advice.

For example, she does a great beg and at the moment can hold position for say four seconds but my hand is hovering above her head. I've started lifting it higher and she'll stay in position but when I pull it forward she drops back to a sit. How do I get my hand out of the picture?

Another like this is crawl. In the down position if I wiggle my fingers on the floor in front of her face and move them away from her she'll army crawl forward. If I start leaving a gap and wiggling my fingers she stands and moves forward to my hand.

Last night we went from Hi 5 left and right paws to Hi 10 with both paws which is cute. We've started work on shaping all four in progressively smaller boxes so there's lots of walking in and out and paws every which way in the smallest box while she works out how to manage it.

I just love that moment when they get what you're after and start offering the behaviour with such enthusiasm. First thing in the morning especially Poppy is like bam bam, look at me go!

[Clicking Mad]

I've been teaching Saxon to go around (a tree or tree-like things) for over a year now, but I have 2 separate commands for the 2 directions

I haven't been clicker training him, he does know the bridge but gets a throw (or 2) of his ball so all his training is quite slow and patient and ad hoc, I tend to have a goal for a week, sometimes I forget or try something else ... anyway I thought he knew the 2 directions well, but the more I tested it the less he seemed to get it ... oops ... so for a while I was only teaching/asking the one direction and he had that no worries, so I tried mixing them both and he was only getting it about 50/50, so I went back to basics with a nice clear verbal and hand signal cue ... and he got it 100% the correct direction.

So then I was specifically teaching the verbal ... give clear verbal, delay, then hand signal ... 100% so that was last week, then this week I try from different angles a little, not so regimented in my body language back to 50/50 right and so now I believe the hand signal was only a small part of the picture, that really it's the whole body language that he's going by, he certainly isn't getting the verbal correct and the whole body language picture is ridiculous (cause I've been standing there thinking exactly how I'm gonna make sure I say this right hahaha ... silly slow humans)

I think I need to continue to teach the verbal, then vary that silly body language cue so it's simply the hand signal that I thought was what he was going on all this time ... he's probably just been guessing ... he really doesn't care which way, whatever, just throw the ball you fool hahaha

He has the spin both directions on 2 separate verbal cues so not sure why this seems so hard

[sheena]

I've been teaching Saxon to go around (a tree or tree-like things) for over a year now, but I have 2 separate commands for the 2 directions

I haven't been clicker training him, he does know the bridge but gets a throw (or 2) of his ball so all his training is quite slow and patient and ad hoc, I tend to have a goal for a week, sometimes I forget or try something else ... anyway I thought he knew the 2 directions well, but the more I tested it the less he seemed to get it ... oops ... so for a while I was only teaching/asking the one direction and he had that no worries, so I tried mixing them both and he was only getting it about 50/50, so I went back to basics with a nice clear verbal and hand signal cue ... and he got it 100% the correct direction.

So then I was specifically teaching the verbal ... give clear verbal, delay, then hand signal ... 100% so that was last week, then this week I try from different angles a little, not so regimented in my body language back to 50/50 right and so now I believe the hand signal was only a small part of the picture, that really it's the whole body language that he's going by, he certainly isn't getting the verbal correct and the whole body language picture is ridiculous (cause I've been standing there thinking exactly how I'm gonna make sure I say this right hahaha ... silly slow humans)

I think I need to continue to teach the verbal, then vary that silly body language cue so it's simply the hand signal that I thought was what he was going on all this time ... he's probably just been guessing ... he really doesn't care which way, whatever, just throw the ball you fool hahaha

He has the spin both directions on 2 separate verbal cues so not sure why this seems so hard

With the go around something, I have the same verbal cue for both clockwise & anti-clockwise, but my body cues are different. If I want my dog to go clockwise, then I will have him on my left & my cue is "go round" together with left arm & left leg extended & vice versa for anti-clockwise. Just have to make sure you keep the pressure on with the body cues till the dog is committed to the turn, or he will stop short & come back. Start off close to the pole & gradually add distance, making sure you use the body cues even when up close.