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Mental Exercises / Jobs you give your Border Collie


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Hi Everyone,

 

I am looking for suggestions on different games / jobs you give your Border Collies to provide mental stimulation. I have a 5 month old puppy at home and hes already trained in basic obedience (Sit, Stay, Come, Paw). I now need to come up with new ideas on how to train Cody.

 

I started playing hide and seek which he seems to love, I have also started hiding his favorite toy, although he seems to have a hard time finding the toy.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on some jobs / mental exercises I can give Cody to occupy his mind. He is full of energy after I come home from work and I need a way to burn off all oft that energy from sleeping all day.

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Hi Everyone,

 

I am looking for suggestions on different games / jobs you give your Border Collies to provide mental stimulation. I have a 5 month old puppy at home and hes already trained in basic obedience (Sit, Stay, Come, Paw). I now need to come up with new ideas on how to train Cody.

 

I started playing hide and seek which he seems to love, I have also started hiding his favorite toy, although he seems to have a hard time finding the toy.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on some jobs / mental exercises I can give Cody to occupy his mind. He is full of energy after I come home from work and I need a way to burn off all oft that energy from sleeping all day.

 

How did you teach him to play hide and seek? I would really love to do that with my 4 moth old puppy. I've also been teaching my puppy, Ailee, to roll over and each of her toys.

 

I'm also looking for different kind of games and and tricks to play with her to get her energy out as well!

 

:)

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We bought several sizes of Holee Rollers from Chewy.com and stuff treats into the smallest and then stuff it into a large one and add a few strips of felt, any toys that fit, and a squeaky ball. Cal spends so much time getting all that stuff out of the ball. It's difficult enough that it takes time, concentration, and some trial and error, but doable so she does end up with a reward at the end. She's so enthralled with getting the goodies out that she brings me the ball now.

 

My best interactive suggestion is to train "take it" and "drop it" so that you can get him to clean up his own toys! It's a plus for you and it's a job for him! I'm working on teaching Cal locations like "here" (with a pointed finger) but it's difficult.

 

The last suggestion is a game called "Place on This". We taught Cal "place" which is just that she has to put herself on whatever we're pointing at. It doesn't matter if she sits or lays, but her whole body needs to be on it (we exclude the tail because she doesn't have control over that thing no matter how hard she tries...it has a mind of its own). So we "place" everywhere - benches, couches, chairs, etc. It's also useful for teaching specific places like "car" and "couch" because once they're jumping up on command, it's easy to rename that particular place as something else. Once he masters the tangible places, try harder ones like hula hoops or even taped squared on the floor.

 

We're also working on designating rooms so "Stay in the kitchen" is a legitimate command and super nice when someone's at the door because you don't have a dog shoving through at the door. "Place" is also useful for this since they're supposed to stay in their place until released!

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Dyeates,

 

It was very simple to teach Cody how to play hide and seek. During obedience training Cody learned the command place, which as mosskins explained has your dog stay in a specific place until he or she is allowed to venture off, we use the command free to allow Cody off of he designated place. When I say free, I start calling his name until he finds him. When he does find me he is so excited like he hasn't seen me in over a week, its very cute.

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Cody may be a little young for scent training. I tried teaching him, but he did not seem to grasp the concept. How did you teach your pup scent training?

 

Puppies are terrific at scenting. They are born with it... my tracking mentor likes to start very young puppies tracking.

 

Just look at this little guy doing scent training!

 

https://www.facebook.com/GSDstagram/videos/958610520935198/

 

Here is a pretty good article on starting nosework.

 

http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/getting-started-nose-work

 

Theres also books and online classes available.

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I really like teaching a nose target (touch), and when Gabe's getting a little nutty, he'll have to play the "touch game" and follow my hand on one side, other side, behind me, under leg, etc etc.

 

We also like trick training! We've done "raise your paw", "roll over", "what does a cat do?"( weaves in between my legs), "where's gabe?" (comes up in between my legs and sits looking up at me), and started some work on paws crossing and general paw targets. It's both fun, and gives him stuff to do with me when meeting new people that he's not happy about.

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