Monday, January 31, 2011

Assume The Position

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, one of our goals for the year is to try some random fun trick training using a clicker. I found a great blog that has weekly tricks to try that also includes a video on how to get started and ideas on how to go about training it. Pretty much perfect for me because in this area I have a more difficult time thinking of things to train. One of the tricks is called "Assume the Position." It also doubles as a way to help stretch your dog. You basically get the dog to put their front feet up on a solid surface and you pat them down, kind of like someone who is about to get arrested. Cute, right?:) I started training the dogs for this trick and very quickly realized that for my guys, this is an outside training trick. When they were going up on the wall, they were actually leaving marks behind. I keep their nails dremmelled nice and short and even so, they left their mark. Due to this (and Adam get pissy about it right in the middle of me working with Heffner, which totally threw our session off and I had to start from the beginning to get us back in the right frame of mind), I'm going to hold off doing any more training until the weather is nicer and I can comfortably do this outside. I did video each of our sessions and strung together what we were able to accomplish.




Don't forget that tomorrow is the start of the Idita-Walk!!

3 comments:

Dexter said...

That looks to be an excellent work out for the back end. I, too, shall wait for the good weather. I think the only wall that I would want to do that against would be the brick exterior of the house.

Mango Momma

Laura and The Corgi, Toller, & Duck said...

Very nice! I'm curious as to why you taught it through nose targeting when it's more of a paw targeting behavior. It is a very fun trick though! My cue is spread em!

Lindsay said...

I'm not really sure. It just kind of made sense to me and I knew that it would be a lot easier for me to get the idea across to the dogs with a nose target. They're both really good at nose bumping my hand for a treat, so it just seemed to translate better for me.