Thursday, July 29, 2010

Silly things that I am teaching Barbie

Barbie does all kinds of strange contortions on the ground in an effort to avoid getting up and repositioning herself. Last night, I started teaching her to go 'commando' and crawl across the floor to me by getting her to lie down, and then holding a treat a bit further out of reach than usual. Lo and behold, she crawled to it. I think she'll figure this out quickly.

I tried to get her to sit and then 'shake' but putting my hand out for the shake, apparently looks too much like my 'down' signal and she lies down. Will have to rethink that one.

The next silly thing I started with last night is 'spin'. I just lure her round in a circle with the treat. Bender has mastered this with me standing close to him but I want them to do it when I'm further away as well.

When I first got Barbie, she would lie on her bed, and if she was excited when you came up she would roll on her side and stick her paw out at you. I said 'paw' and praised her back then, so now she things 'paw' means lie on your side on the ground. I want to progress from this to 'bang' (play dead) eventually I want to do that trick that people usually teach their chihuahuas, I make 'gun fingers' and go 'bang' and she 'plays dead'. Not sure if I'm going to get the effect because she will probably be too leisurely in going down.

From that I will go to 'roll over'. Oh that is going to be funny.

I'm also working on 'through' which means go through a hula hoop. She won't do this without a treat, even if it is on the ground. Ideally I want both dogs to be in a down-stay, and be able to call each one through the hoop individually. They both need work on their 'stays' to do this though. Barbie's stay is very shaky at the moment but we will get there!

9 comments:

whygreyhounds said...

Sounds like fun and games for barbie! Will be great to hear how she progresses with the exercises. Go Barbie!!

Greyhounds CAN Sit said...

Do you use a clicker? I 'shaped' Beryl to shake hands with the clicker and she caught on very quickly. The only trouble now is that when I tell her to sit she does that and then offers her paw, lol. Barbie is doing so well. I must work on 'stay' with Beryl and Frankie, they don't have one! What is Bender doing while you're training Barbie?

jet said...

I have a spare room at the moment so I train them one at a time in the 'room' or do it inside while Bender is off sunning himself. The problem is actually training Bender without Barbie. I shut her out and she gets most upset! I am trying to work on things like down/sit/stay with them both together though.

I have just started using a clicker. It helps with timing I think. I think I'm going to try to shape 'lean' (or bow but lean is the word so as to not confuse with down)... since she does it on the way down anyway.

houndstooth said...

Ha ha ha! Bunny does the crawling, inching across the ground thing, too. We call it the Old Yeller routine! I have seen some dogs with some great tricks. One of my favorites is a girls who says "Achoo" and her dog goes and gets a tissue!

Two Pitties in the City said...

So fun! I do a little skit with Miss M where she does the bang dead, then rolls over like she escaped the shot. I would love to do the crawl, but to this day I can't get her to do it. She eventually starts standing up and not crawling at all.

jet said...

I think crawling is something that is easier to get greyhounds to do cos it's less effort for them to crawl rather than get up ;)

Never Say Never Greyhounds said...

We need some video!

jet said...

hahah coming! I really have to figure out my new camera!

Greyhounds CAN Sit said...

I used the clicker to get Beryl to bow too:-) And you've been busy with your blog. I like the windmills, we've got them here too. Yes, we want video .... please:-)

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