Tricks

[Sally Huff]

Thanks to Laurie, I taught Gracie to speak this afternoon.  Now we'll work on whispering. We're building our bags of tricks.  Gracie knows her left from right and can play the shell game.  I would love to hear what tricks your doodles know!

[Doris]

Wow- left and right?  Can Gracie come and teach my first graders??  Bodi can sit, lay down, roll over, talk, play dead (with a wagging tail, lol) shake, hug, kiss, and jump in the air.  My sons have enjoyed teaching him tricks! 

[Cathy, Fozzie & Shaggy]

Doris, that's awesome! Fozzie can play dead with a waggy tail until I say, "tail too". I'm working on bow and pray with both dogs. Fozzie has a very nice sit pretty but Shaggy, is so clumsy and just throws himself up for a sit pretty move, it's so comical! I love working on tricks and doing them when we visit the hospital and library.
Sally, I goof up my left and right so bad I'm not sure I could teach that one to my dogs :-/). I'm so bad, I almost NQ'ed in rally once because on a 180° left turn I went right, turning into the gate but even worse, I redid that sign and made the same mistake!! I've decided when I compete in rally again I will put an R & L on my hands =:-O

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Tara knows left and right paw, shake, kiss, roll over, show me your belly, play dead (she gets shot with a finger and a bang), jump into DH's arms (she's a mini so it's not dangerous LOL), dance, high five.  She is smart and loves to do her tricks probably because there is a treat involved!

[Lori, Daphne, Lucy & Pippa]

Is there an easy way to teach the "bang, you're dead" trick? I cannot get Daphne to get that one. She is a smart girl. She can jump thru hoops or thru arms held in a circle, roll over, dance, sit pretty (we call it "say please"). She waves, gives a high ten, right and left paw and she can read flash cards. I must be teaching play dead wrong or just not right for her. Oh, I forgot to mention that she speaks on command and then LOUDLY throughout her whole trick routine. Can't get her to do them quietly. I really need to work on the whisper!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Wow, Daphne sounds so smart! And it also seems she likes the sound of her own voice! LOL I had a book called 101 Dog Tricks and it had directions for teaching "play dead". However, I loaned my book to the neighbors and have yet to get it back ) 2 years ago! Soooo, if I remember correctly it was fairly easy because she already knew roll over with a hand signal. I just had to teach her to get to the flat point of the roll and stop (by stopping her with my hands at first and she knows the word "wait" means not to go forward). I changed the hand signal to the pointed finger and eventually added the bang. Now when it is trick time she just starts rolling, playing dead and showing me her belly, all very similar, before I even ASK! I guess she thinks I'm going to be asking for ONE of them so she will just get them all out of the way. There are some good videos on YouTube on teaching your dog to play dead. You might get some ideas there. Read flash cards???? Seriously???

[Lori, Daphne, Lucy & Pippa]

Daphne tries all her tricks too without being asked because she knows one of them is right and I will give her a treat. I have started telling her "eh-eh" if she does the wrong one because I don't want her to think she can just do whatever she wants and still get a treat. The flash cards is actually quite easy for dogs. They are visual creatures. They dont really read but see the word as a whole symbol. We started with "sit". She learned that pretty quickly. You start out telling her to sit and showing the flash card at the same time. After a few times you dont need to say it anymore. I would wait a day or two in between new words giving her time to really get one before adding another. She can sit, speak (of coarse), wave and roll (over). I usually start with speak when showing this to people because she continues to speak  throughout. She must think that the louder she is, the better treat she will get.

There is some information on this here:

http://www.ippgazette.com/Issues/V4-4/DogsCanRead.htm

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Thanks for link , Lori.  That's a great trick and I still think that Daphne has a high I.Q!!  Did you make the flash cards? I would be in trouble if that's the case. Not sure Tara would recognize stick dogs.

[Lori, Daphne, Lucy & Pippa]

I did make the cards but mine just have words on them. Just Big block letters. She just sees that whole word as the symbol. I cant draw worth a hoot so no artistic creativity here!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Same here! I think I can manage the words though. Or at least print them off the computer!

[Thuy & Hops]

Good idea starting early! They can learn so much at a young age. I've taught Hops a lot of tricks, but I can't do "speak" because he rarely barks! I like showing off this video of him doing tricks at 4 months old :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tQSHMSZc3k&list=TLgq_aNB5Ttng

The 2 most useful ones for us is definitely fetching a beer and closing the door.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Hops was really focused for a 4 month old. You did a great job with him-so cute and smart!

[Lori, Daphne, Lucy & Pippa]

I would love to watch the video but I cant see it due to computer troubles. I will come back when my problems are fixed :-(