Olive leaves the building and Barbie's tricky time!

Last night Olive went on trial with a lovely couple who live in the Perth Hills - they have a young dog and alpacas. 

She has adapted well to house life, and has made much progress in learning how to use a dog bed since this photo was taken. N said 'nice try, but it seems she hasn't grasped the concept fully'. 

Olive was nice to the kitties, most of the time, and they were quite happy to share space with her. Barbie seemed to be a bit subdued when Olive was here because she didn't want to be chased. It was probably a smart move.

Good luck on your trial sweet Olive. You are welcome back here if it doesn't work out, but hopefully it will!!!!

Since Olive was gone, I had to do some doggie stuff to keep myself occupied. A friend of mine posted an adorable video of her dog Charlie doing 'roll over'. Charlie is a little boy, so I thought it was about time we committed Barbie's tricks to video and people could laugh at the differences between Barbie's roll over and Charlie's. 

I didn't bother to edit the video so this is realtime of Barbie running through her repertoire. 

What is your favorite dog trick? 

Barbie's first Fetch

With the cooler weather, the kitties have been absolutely feral. They are constantly engaging each other in battle. Last night they just sat on the top of the couch trading body blows until I told them to knock it off!

Anyway, Mittens was sitting on the top of the couch while I was lying there, and I gave her a bit of a scratch. She seemed to enjoy it and started purring, and then she bit me! Softly, sure, but Mittens has never bitten me like that before! Then she whacked me with her paw. I went to the laundry and got her little purple kitty ball. I figured it was safe to play with the kitty ball because Bender was outside and Barbie wouldn't bother with it.

I threw it around for Mittens a bit and she showed some interest, and then Barbie came along. I threw the ball, Barbie trotted over to it, and daintily picked it up in her mouth! I praised her and called her back to me, and for the first time ever she came to me and dropped the teeny ball at my feet!

Mittens, being the neat freak that she is, would not touch the ball after it had been in Barbie's mouth, and Barbie lost interest and went back to her bed. It was so CUTE though!

200th Post!

To celebrate my 200th post on this blog I thought I would show you Barbie's new trick!

It is 'spin' - when I was first teaching her how to do this, she seemed to get half way through turning (so she was facing away from me)and then not be sure what she was supposed to do. I just called her name then and she turned back around.

She picked it up quickly but not as quickly as some of her other tricks. Bender has been spinning for a while. I taught him by stepping into him while holding the treat over his head. I had to do a more exaggerated arm movement to teach Barbie.



Barbie's trick resume (aside from normal obedience stuff) is starting to grow....

Spin
Wave
High 5
Pray
Kiss
Touch (my hand with her nose)
Roll over
Play Dead (paw)
Commando
Through (hoop, tunnel etc)
Leg weaving (still working on this one)

Next we are going to walk on 'back' and 'curtsey' (bow). I'm also going to work on getting her to pick up items (like socks) in case I decide to try tracking with her (when she has to pick up scent articles). Then perhaps I can teach her to load and unload the washing machine?

I think I might also teach her to turn lights on/off, but I'm not going to teach her to open and close doors, especially the fridge door... she could get up to all kinds of mayhem then.

Any more suggestions of cute tricks to 'wow' the crowds? Or any assistance dog type tricks which don't involve the dog getting into trouble when left inside all day? :)

We have a really big day on Saturday, taking Bender to his first proper tracking class, and taking Barbie to a Greyhounds as Pets stall in the afternoon. Barbie will wow the crowd with her tricks. High 5 and Wave seem to be crowd favorites, but since we are in a grass area I'm sure we can do roll over/play dead and commando as well. Other greyhound people are just impressed when she sits. I really hope I can inspire some of them to do more with their dogs.

Bender and Barbie hoop jumping

Bender is a great jumper, but we limit how much jumping he does these days because he tends to pull up sore in the wrists from an hour of running offleash fetching.. he did injure his right one jumping on the fence in our old house - we think he got his foot caught in some ivy on the way down and swelled up massively. We got it xrayed at the time and the vet couldn't see any damage, immobilised it for couple of weeks or so and it seemed to heal up OK. Anyway we are just looking out for him. In a few years he may not even get to do much off leash running unless he learns to slow down! Anyway, I decided I needed video of him jumping so that when he is older we can reminisce.

Barbie is a very confident and accurate jumper if she is moving at speed but not from a standing start. I think for her, all her spatial judgement and confidence comes at a minimum of 40kph!

Anyway, here they are having a bit of fun with a hula hoop.

Dog Tricks - Teaching Barbie to Wave

So here is a go at being more 'instructional' - yes I know the house needs better lighting. Or I need to do these during the day.



And some of you asked for a 'blooper reel' - well I managed to recreate the 'hug' she will do it if Bender is sitting to the left of her.



I need to get her not to hit him in the head so much, but just lay her leg over his shoulders... if she gets him in the head he gets all arced up for a wrestle.

Teaching Barbie to 'wave'

I've decided that I am going to try my hand at making slightly more 'instructive' youtube videos in order for them to be more useful for a wider audience. The problem I guess is that I'm no authority on these things. Barbie is only the third dog I've owned and she's only the second one I've really taught tricks to.

Last night I tried a strategy with shaping 'high five' into a wave. I basically just started asking for a high five, using the high five hand signal, but standing a step away. She did successfully give me a few waves.

This is where Barbie's creativity comes into it though. As I was doing a sit/stay, then the high five (wave), Bender was sitting quite stoically next to Barbie. I asked for a wave from Barbie and got it the first few times, but then she decided that she would try something different. She put her front leg over Bender's shoulders! It was so incredibly cute I laughed and treated her for it. I think we will save that one for later though, I need to get high five and wave solid first.

She also tried pawing Bender in the head a few times because she couldn't reach my hand for the high five. I decided I would stop and give it a go tonight without Bender sitting next to her.

Bender is so beautifully tolerant though, he just sat there and took it when Barbie bashed him in the head with her paw! I guess it is making his sit/stay much more solid!

Barbie's High Five Trick

I saw that a friend of a friend on Facebook had taught his young Border Collie pup this trick in like... 5 minutes, and I thought, Barbie could do that.

So I sat her down, held my hand out flat and asked for a High Five. She pawed at various bits of me til she got my hand and got rewarded. In usual bright Barbie fashion she picked it up quickly, and now I can get a High Five while I'm standing.

Next is to teach 'wave'.

I also tried to teach Barbie to weave through my legs as per Hsin-Yi's suggestion of throwing the treat between my legs so that Barbie would go after it, and then come around the front for some more. The problem with that is after a few repetitions she hung around behind me and wouldn't come back around the front! I think I can probably teach her that way but maybe not when it's so hot! It was 38 degrees today and the heat is really sapping Barbie's energy.

barbie's 'pray'

So she's mainly got 'pray', next time I'll work on the head position, but it kind of looks like praying! :) she's got it down in one move now but I think she's being queued by the object (the chair) as well as the verbal command. I will work on it with park benches and stuff like that when we are out.

I think I need to get one of those 101 trick books to see how many I can get Barbie to do. She is such a sharp little cookie.

So here is the video. Excuse Bender's barking. I am proud of Barbie not being distracted though. Also note Mittens lazing on the couch, she is probably thinking 'I'm glad I'm not a dog!'

Shaping behaviours

I think I'm finally starting to understand why Barbie is so much easier to teach tricks to!

The way that I teach my dogs is to take an 'offered' behaviour and shape it into a trick.

So when I taught Barbie 'paw' (or cockroach) - it was because when she was really happy and I would stoop down to her level she would roll onto her back and wiggle her feet in the air. I almost taught it to her by accident. 'Roll over' then was just an extension of that.

Last night I was playing with the dogs, and got the treats out to see what they would do. They both sat, lied down, did commando, and a few other things, but then Barbie started lifting up her left paw in the sit. So I started getting her to put her paws on a cushion which I was holding against my thigh from a sit position. I think this is going to be 'say your prayers' where I put the cushion on a chair and get her to put her feet up on that from a sit, and then get her to put her head down.

The problem with Bender is that he hardly ever offers something new when I'm training/playing with them. He is very solid in the things he has learned how to do, and once he has them in his head he is more consistient than Barbie. For instance now I can get him to spin three times before he gets a treat and he's very confident at jumping through a hula hoop that I'm holding in the air. His sits and downs are solid.

It's like Barbie is the 'flashy' dog and Bender's the old tractor. She likes to learn new things while Bender is happy plodding along and doing everything 'right'.

Anyway video of new tricks to come....

A night of training/play in our house

I generally do about 5 to 10 minutes of training every night with the dogs, and then take them on a half hour walk. Tonight on our walk, I spotted a white thing running across the road. I realised it was a dog by it's gait, and it was hassling another pedestrian on the other side of the road. It's owner stormed after it yelling it's name over and over... 'ROXY ROXY ROXY SIT STAY ROXY ROXY!' I realised that it would probably run to us but was hoping that he would get it back under control. He got it back into the park and I thought he would have the sense to put it on a leash. Then I saw it running after someone else in the park, barking and yapping at this person. The owner was yelling at the dog like he was going to kill it. Then it noticed us and came to us. It has a really aggressive demeanour and Barbie was having none of it. She barked at it, and when she did it darted away. I went wide so that if it ran it would only run to the park. Eventually the owner's yelling convinced the dog to move away from us and it zipped back into the park again. I told the guy that he needed to take her someplace with a fence or keep her on the leash. I hope she doesn't end up in a shelter, or worse get killed by a car. He really had no clue.

Barbie got to run offleash quite a bit in the previous 5 days, and I think more off leash time makes her more feisty. We didn't go out at all last night because I was busy doing other things, and she decided that she would just roll around on the carpet talking to try and convince me.

When I get home she now does the same thing as Bender, she goes straight for her toys! Anyway I decided to harness that energy. Who would have thought a greyhound could crawl so fast?



I then bought Bender in for some work. Bender demonstrates his version of 'commando' - Barbie does a great down/stay with distraction (considering how much she loves to commando herself), then Barbie does roll over and Bender does a spin for good measure.

Teaching the dogs to salute

I was puttering around on the internet late yesterday, waiting for someone to come up and see me or respond to an email or something, and I googled 'cute tricks to teach your dog'.

The first one that I found which I was interested in was to teach them a 'salute'. The method was to put a piece of not-very-sticky tape on the dog's head and then ask them to sit. They then lift their paw to get the tape off their head, and you click, then treat.

Seemed pretty simple and I thought it would be a good trick for Bender because his sits are solid as a rock.

Bender is a strange dog though, and sometimes there's no accounting for his reactions!

I called Bender into the bedroom first, and shut Barbie out. I attempted to put the tape on his head. It really was not sticky as I'd stuck it to my jumper first. I told him to sit. I went to put the tape on his head. He ducked and dodged. I tried again. He ran away, put his tail between his legs and started grovelling.

Oh, dear.

I can't teach Bender salute that way, then.

I swapped dogs to give Barbie a go. Barbie was almost the opposite. I got her to sit, put the tape on her head, and it was like she didn't notice it was there! I touched it a couple of times, and she lifted the paw and swiped it off. So we got 3 successful salutes, click, treat. Then she stopped noticing it was there at all. I took it off her and we did some 'commando' just to finish on a positive note.

'Touch' is coming along OK. Bender is actually better at it. Barbie seems to lose interest. It's not challenging for her. I think we shall progress to touching objects.

Barbie does 'Roll Over'

I emailed Desma (the dog trainer) and told her that if she saw the trainer who remembered 'Barbed Wire' again, he should search 'Barbed Wire' and 'greyhound' on youtube and she will blow his mind. Apparently he was shocked that anyone would take a greyhound to obedience class.

I better start working on her repertoire!

Training Update

I think Barbie is starting to understand 'roll over' but I don't think it's her favorite trick. 'Paw' has also turned into 'flail your legs around like a dieing cockroach'.

Here is a really crappy video of 'commando'.