Trick Challenge #1-March to the Music

So it's only marching with the front paws then? Hmmmm.....this will be fun!!! I'm going to have to give this a try with Mr. "I'm too impatient for trick training"...uh...Riley.



seashel said:
:biggrin2: Sounds good and thanks for the training tips too. I've always liked how this looks when I've seen it done (I also LOVE freestyle dressage to music - have tickets for it at the Olympics!:wink2:) .
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SOOOOO JEALOUS!!! I couldn't convince DH on the trip to London....for some reason he thinks it's a bit too pricey to fly us to London just to see the equestrian events :winkgrin:
 
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That's a good suggestion, but how would I reward her if she does it right? It has never worked for us giving her verbal praise. She doesn't care about that. She works for FOOD.
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Do you have a cue word for when she does things right, like 'good'? You can prime the word just like a clicker - spend some time saying 'good' and rewarding with food, until she works out 'good' = reward.

If she has never done a paw touch then I would start by just rewarding for her looking at an outstretched hand, so she learns that the hand is the key to food, then move it on to getting her to have to touch the hand. If she is really reluctant, I would place my hand on the floor next to her foot and reward any movement of the foot towards the hand.

When I taught Cadbury to shake paw - pre clicker days for me - I hid a piece of food in my closed fist so he knew it was there and then waited for him to try and get it by scratching at it with his paw, then saying 'good boy' and rewarding with the food.

Eventually I stopped rewarding from the closed fist, but from my other hand and then started opening the fist so it was a flat palm.

Does that help?

I have started teaching Merlin to touch my feet, left paw, left foot, right paw right foot. I did this by first asking for 'give paw' with my hand on my foot and clicking, then very quickly removing the hand and just rewarding for touching the foot with the correct paw.
 
labgirl said:
Do you have a cue word for when she does things right, like 'good'? You can prime the word just like a clicker - spend some time saying 'good' and rewarding with food, until she works out 'good' = reward.

If she has never done a paw touch then I would start by just rewarding for her looking at an outstretched hand, so she learns that the hand is the key to food, then move it on to getting her to have to touch the hand. If she is really reluctant, I would place my hand on the floor next to her foot and reward any movement of the foot towards the hand.

When I taught Cadbury to shake paw - pre clicker days for me - I hid a piece of food in my closed fist so he knew it was there and then waited for him to try and get it by scratching at it with his paw, then saying 'good boy' and rewarding with the food.

Eventually I stopped rewarding from the closed fist, but from my other hand and then started opening the fist so it was a flat palm.

Does that help?

I have started teaching Merlin to touch my feet, left paw, left foot, right paw right foot. I did this by first asking for 'give paw' with my hand on my foot and clicking, then very quickly removing the hand and just rewarding for touching the foot with the correct paw.
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Oh she DEFINITELY knows "GOOD!" = Reward. It's a really good suggestion to start with getting a reward for just looking at my hand. I forgot those little basics. She learned "leave -it" in one session because anytime she turned her head from the "leave it" object, she got rewarded. Thank you for the reminder!
 
Lahree said:
My husband and I were in hysterics trying to teach Ellie to "shake." She clearly does not get it and was absoultely beside herself because she KNOWS I have food and she can't concentrate. :lol: :lol: She offered me her entire repertoire of tricks desperately trying to figure out how to get the food as quickly as possible. We only have until the end of May you say? LOLOLOLOLOL! :gaah
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I had a terrible time teaching Fergus to "shake". From my human perspective it seemed a fairly easy thing to teach but apparently not. He is not food obsessed and I could see by the look on his face that he did not get the concept. He looked totally confused. It shocked me because he catches on to things very quickly and already had a wide array of tricks in his repertoire. He did learn it and now will alternate paws if asked. It just took a very long time for him to "get it".
 
Lahree said:
That's a good suggestion, but how would I reward her if she does it right? It has never worked for us giving her verbal praise. She doesn't care about that. She works for FOOD.
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get a really outrageous food put it somewhere on a table, in the bowl whatever, keep your dog on leash. Stay next to it- ask for sit... dog answers " "No, can not do it" pick up that leash and move away few feet- ask same question " Can you do it here?" - "No", move to next room- can you do it here, yes I can!... Great, release and run to the room with a treat.
You might want to start with food in your hand and classical "Its your choice" training.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipT5k1gaXhc
 
HopeShelties said:
If you watch how they teach piaffe and passage from the ground on youtube, it is with a crop touching the back leg. I bet it does work the same teaching a dog, like you said.
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That would be interesting to see if that works. I am a dressage student and when working with a dressage whip or crop, it sparks the "flight" response of the horse. Gets them to pay attention, go faster, or move away from it depending on how it's used. But since dogs are a million miles away from a horse's mentality since they are predator-not prey-animals, it might not work the same way. If you try it and it works that would be awesome to see!
 
DanteBella85 said:
That would be interesting to see if that works. I am a dressage student and when working with a dressage whip or crop, it sparks the "flight" response of the horse. Gets them to pay attention, go faster, or move away from it depending on how it's used. But since dogs are a million miles away from a horse's mentality since they are predator-not prey-animals, it might not work the same way. If you try it and it works that would be awesome to see!
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I think I understand what are you saying, never trained anything in my life before so can not say on horse training. Target stick is just a target and value build same as you would do for target. When I was teaching my pup just to lift their hind legs I would put something like duct tape or band aid or hair band and click for leg lift/ dog is trying to remove foreign object/ It is better if it is applied and removed to only single response each time and not leg shaking/ unless that is what you going for/
Anyway, problem came up when I had a challenge to teach rear leg stretch back, thus I used target stick. I DO NOT TOUCH with stick my dog. I just keep it close to his rear leg and ASK for response/ because I loaded it up with value before/. Response is always OFFERED. I want my dog to make an effort and reach for the target with his leg as opposed to prompt leg movement by touching it with the stick.
 
Well, I gave this a shot tonight with a quick session. I can already see the challenges! I love the idea of breaking the behavior into easier criteria, and then making it more difficult.

So, we started with just "high fiving" a low hand (the dog using the paw indicated by that hand).

Bentley: Bentley already knows high five, so this wasn't too bad for him. Except, he is clearly right-pawed! :lol: It was a bit more difficult to encourage him to use his left paw to hit my right hand. I got a couple successful tries, and called it quits. He gets flustered really easily and circles around the room looking for something to interact with. I have to keep him engaged by getting him to do something he can do, so we kept coming back to the right paw to left hand. No problems there. I just have to make him think about using his other paw.

Lexi: Lexi doesn't know high five or shake, so I thought this might be harder for her. I was able to get her to paw at my hand (luckily this is her default "I'm impatient" move) but she keeps thinking it has something to do with her putting both feet on me. She gets closer and closer to me and it makes it hard for her to see my outstretched hand. I spent half the time pushing her off of me! (The last few tricks we've taught have been her climbing on us!)

Thoughts/suggestions from the others out there?
 
Since I spent the day yesterday with Ember, I worked with her. Turns out she knows how to shake hands with both paws. Weird.:confused2: I swear I never taught her this. High five yes, shake no.:lol:

Justice also knows shake so he is figuring the first steps out. Diva and Birch only so far want to put their noses in my hand. Work to do there.:smile2:
 
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