Mental Work?

[Jaynie]

My two boys (now at Rainbow Bridge) tended to get a little bored with their job every so often, so I'd have to switch things up. We did obedience until that was *yawn*, then herding ducks, agility, herding sheep, tricks, and herding cows. When I retired them from competition, I trained even more tricks and had them both certified as therapy dogs who did little demonstrations and visits at the local children's hospital. Neechee was in pretty high demand for posing for advertising photography, as he was polite, biddable, and would pose for hours. Max (Border Collie) greatly enjoyed work as a performing party clown at children's birthday parties (that was the one place HE wasn't the tornado in the room).

The pair of girls I have right now have the most basic, yet most important of any job a dog has - they are companions and friends, and happy with that. They are "First Friends".

[seashel]

Just sharing my recent experience here.

I have to thank SheltieChe for introducing me to Silvia Trkman's website a week or so ago. (The same links that are on here). I've just started teaching Epic some of the puppy tricks and because we've also had a lot of snow, his normal outdoors activities (weave training etc) have been impossible. I've found that he is MORE tired from learning the tricks than from running the weaves and we're spending a similar amount of time doing it. Because we are free shaping and he has to figure out for himself how to make me 'click' he's working quite hard, both mentally and physically. Epic is training for HTM so we do quite a few tricks anyway but in the past I have done more luring which doesn't involve quite the same effort but still a lot of fun. The benefit of tricks is that you can teach a dog pretty much anything that it is physically capable of and it doesn't take up a lot of space or need any specialist equipment - we've done most of our training in a space about 6foot square! It also really strengthens the bond between owner and dog and the more they learn, the easier they are to teach new things. Even if there isn't any long term need for the tricks (for competition or sport) they're still a lot of fun and something that friends and family will be impressed with too

Although Revel is 13, he has been enjoying playing his memory game which is similar to the Nina Ottasen toys. Yogi has been laid off doing heelwork for a bit while his mobility issues are sorted and meanwhile we've FINALLY cracked the retrieve which has eluded him for 9 years LOL!! Again taught in a tiny space and not much physical effort needed. It's actually amazing how much you can teach a dog while (you're) sitting down. Some people with mobility issues have taught their dogs (just regular pet dogs, not trained assistance dogs) to fetch the TV remote, close/open doors, pick up socks etc so even tiny dogs can be 'helpful'.

I'm not sure if it is available where you are, but I got a great book for Christmas called 'Brain Games for Dogs' by Clare Arrowsmith which has a lot of good ideas for tricks and keeping dogs 'entertained'.

[JacqueZ]

Honey's jobs are to "help" me make the bed, and to get me my socks in the morning. I open the drawer, (still working on getting her to do that) and walk away and she has to pick a pair and bring them to me. (And its always the most colorful pair...)

We love the hide and seek games too, but for times when I need her to distract herself the easiest puzzle to set up is a towel with food hidden in the folds. I also cut up milk bottles and make her figure out how to get the food to come out.

She decided to teach herself how to catch a ball in the air, and that's proven to be a good trick to work on, because as she gets better at it I can increase the difficulty.

[Meldor]

Originally Posted by JacqueZ

Honey's jobs are to "help" me make the bed, and to get me my socks in the morning. I open the drawer, (still working on getting her to do that) and walk away and she has to pick a pair and bring them to me. (And its always the most colorful pair...)

I love it! That is awesome, I would love to teach Kyara to bring me a pair a socks every morning (I will need to move them to a lower drawer ). Instead, she has learned to steal my slippers when I am about to put them on silly pup!

[Jaynie]

I forgot to mention it in my last post (got sidetracked, sorry), but I teach my dogs a version of "3 card monte" or cups & balls using treats and graduating to other things, and adding more cups as time goes on. Puppies are really good at learning this once they get the scent of the treats, and older dogs enjoy it too. Neechee went blind during his last year of life, but absolutely loved playing this game to the very end. We did it every day.

[Justicemom]

Originally Posted by JacqueZ

Honey's jobs are to "help" me make the bed, and to get me my socks in the morning. I open the drawer, (still working on getting her to do that) and walk away and she has to pick a pair and bring them to me. (And its always the most colorful pair...)

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Justice gets me my shoes and collects the dishes for me at meal time.

[JacqueZ]

Originally Posted by Justicemom

Justice gets me my shoes and collects the dishes for me at meal time.

Honey has, on occasion, accidentally brought me a shoe (singular) when she wanted to go out, but I suspect it was more of a, "if I steal this the girl will chase me around and I'll have all the attention" type thing