Odd or accidental training

[Melissa & Porter]

I'm curious in what ways other people have accidentally trained their doodles (or been trained by their doodles).  Here is my example to show you what I mean.

 

When Porter is thirsty and feels his water bowl could be a bit fresher--anything over 15 minutes in the bowl seems to be "unfresh" in his mind--he will make a big show of walking into the mudroom bathroom.  This is a threat to drink from the toilet.  When I see this, I say, "Ohyawansomefreshwater?" and he turns around, walks out of the bathroom and waits by his bowl, which I then pick up, dump in the sink, and refill.

 

This is similar to how I accidentally trained my toddlers to come to me crying and saying "Are you okay?" every time they got boo boos.  Also, I "trained" them to come to me, raise their arms in the air and say, "Carry you?"

 

I bet you all have some of these stories, doodle or kid, too :-)

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

I have somehow taught Cooper the command "I havent thrown it yet" and "I cant reach that"

 

Coop loves to play fetch and is off running before the ball leaves my hand. If ashes too far ahead ill say "I havent thrown it yet" and she will turn around and come running back

 

When she brings me the ball she likes to drop it just far enough away so i cant grab her collar and make her go inside, so i say "I cant reach that" and she picks up the ball and brings it closer. I then point to my side and say "here", I touch her collar and then throw the ball

[Jen, Lachlan, and Declan]

Still laughing out loud at "Ohyawansomefreshwater?"

Pixel the cat isn't allowed in the bedroom at night (I'm not fond of having my head tackled like a football (literally) at 2am because he's bored and wannaPLAYrightNAOW!), so I give him a small cat toy when I go to bed so he has something to kick around the house during the night. In the morning I have to find and pick up said cat toy before Lachlan eats it. Initially it was a race to see who found it first, me or Lach, and half the time I'd be fishing it out of puppy mouth. Now he runs to find it every morning and brings it to me.

[shelly]

BREAD is our word that gets an immediate reaction with a head turn and dash to the cabinet!

[Bonnie and Kona]

Lachlan! What a wonderful boy you are!

[Michael Gurley]

Sunny has trained me to get up in the morning (or early afternoon... I'm a college kid after all) by jumping off the bed, staring at me for a moment and then going to my area rug and sniffing around threatening to pee on it. I always jump up and let her out!!

 

She also has trained me to get her food bowl down from the counter by stepping in my other dog's empty bowl and making noise in it.

 

I accidentally trained Sunny to wait for me to go through the pool area into the main house by standing on the window ledge.

[BG and Gavin]

Gavin has accidently learned that me going outside with his car harness in my hand means I better go pee because we are going on a 4 hour car ride!

[Lorraine Bromley]

My sons great dane loves to get fresh drips from our walk in shower body jets. She will often go in and lick them to see if anything will come out! So she stands there watching the shower wiggling a bit waiting until we get out then in she goes to lick them!

[Lorraine Bromley]

Zee the great dane learned very early on that I don't do midnight trips outside to potty and do not wake up if I am finally asleep so she learned to get up from her bed on my side of the bed to go around and nudge grampa with a poke of her nose into his back or face depending on how quick he responds.

[Bonnie and Kona]

Kona stands quietly in the master bath waiting for me to fill his indoor water bowl. He is extremely patient but he gets his point across.