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In German foot is Fuß (plural Füße) or fuss in an Anglicized alphabet, pronounced as you wrote it -- foos (plural foos-eh IIRC).

 

If she was using the preposition "by" she was mixing English and German. I think "by my feet" would be "durch meine Füße." ;)

I know it wasn't the long version. ;)

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^^^Natasha has learned her basic commands in German because that is what I use with my GSD.

 

Natasha knows quite a few tricks. We did lots of trick training over the summer when it was too hot to go out but as soon as the temperatures cooled we abandoned that for play time at the park.

 

We are boring when it comes to the crate command and just use "crate". But for quiet (stop barking) we use "Quiet Coyote" and use the hand signal that is used for "dog" for shadow puppets. It was a silly thing that my adult daughter learned as a camp counselor and taught Natasha.

 

I would love to join a trick challenge thread. I think it would motivate me to practice (kind of like my daughter and needing those weekly lessons even in the summer or the instruments never get practiced).

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Okay so there seems to definitely be interest in a trick challenge game. Some things to decide:

-Would it be weekly or monthly something else?
-Would there only be one option for the trick, or would there be two or three options? If there were two or three would they vary in difficulty level, vary in style (practical, active, silly), or be within all the same categories but just be different tricks?

-How would we decide what the trick of the week/month/biweek/whatever was?

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I vote for once a month also.

 

Maybe start with a trick at 2 levels - for example, sit pretty and sit pretty while raising one (or both) front legs above head or sit pretty with one (or both) paws over nose. And if someone was to be creative and come up with another variation, I would be interested in seeing that too.

 

If a trick is difficult, possibly just training the trick itself will be challenging enough.

 

I think that this challenge should take into account that some people will be novices whereas some already have many of the tricks mastered.

 

My 2 cents.

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I vote once a month, as well.

 

In cases where I don't quite want to work on the challenge trick per se, I'm going to modify it to suit myself/my dog, anyway, whether that modification be trick level or something else.

 

Maybe that option should just exist. Here is the trick: (Trick name, description), and anyone who needs/wants to modify it is free to do so.

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I like Root Beer's suggestion! I'd be game for weekly (hell, daily!), but I think monthly is best.

 

We might be able to find categories from the trick dog titling thingy. They give broad categories that might work for everyone. For instance, "go to a target". That could be just getting the dog to put its feet on a target for more novice dogs, and send to a target at increasing distances for more advanced ones. Same with something like "4 feet on an item", it could be a large board for novices or 4 paw pods (or tuna cans in my case, I'm cheap) for advanced dogs. Or "hold", novices would just be trying to get the dog to hold for a short while, others could be a hold with movement, or a pretty.

 

A broad category also might give wiggle room to those who have more time on their hands and want to take on more tricks under that category.

 

Ultimately it's just for fun, everyone can be free to modify as necessary for themselves and their dogs.

 

(Root Beer, out of curiosity, why won't you teach limp? I'm having a hard time imagining how to teach skip without the limp step in between.)

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I had an interesting experience yesterday that relates to tricks that I thought I'd share.

 

I was hired to have Cohen appear in a commercial. They weren't looking for anything fancy. They just wanted a dog in the background to be a dog. Just to lay down, for all intents and purposes. Sounds easy. But noooo... Laying down and chilling out is hard for my girl. She's like, "there must be more to it than that -- here's a head on the ground instead". Nope, reset, re-shoot. She kept reading the model's movement as the cue to drop her chin to the floor, for whatever reason. Then they wanted her to sit there looking at her "owner". I tried to lure her gaze with a treat from the other side of the room because really it shouldn't be that hard. But she wouldn't break eye contact with me regardless of the food or toy I was waving around, so we had to put me on a box to get her looking in the right direction. Then she'd futz when the model moved in front of her field of vision for a split second. All this training, and Chilling Out is basically the hardest thing I can ask of her.

 

So, now my homework is to teach her to focus on a target stick from a distance and have her follow it with her gaze as it moves regardless of distractions. I feel like that'll probably be useful in the future. This isn't the first time I've been stymied by her refusal to follow a food lure on set. :P

 

We never know what will be asked of us before we show up, so it's hard to prepare in advance. I really should just go back to basics, but that's booooooring.

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I'm in! I'll post a disclaimer before I start though. Kidding starts in a week, and from then until June I'm going to be moderately busy with work, babies, (goats, cows, ducks, and chickens) gardening etc. (I say moderately busy because my belief is that you're never too busy for what you really, really, really want to do.)

Also, Duke is very unmotivated or lazy, and it is hard to teach him new tricks-especially any that require a lot of action on his part. That's not to say I'm not training pretty much every day, mostly polishing what we know, as that is what he likes most, and believe me, he needs a lot of polishing on anything I teach.

Here is a list of the things he knows. I'm sure I'm missing a few, as I copy and pasted from a different forum where I'd posted it last year.

 

Sit Pretty

Back up

Turn around. (Hand signals for left and right)

Bring it here. (Anything he can in anyway get to me except metal objects. He refuses to touch those.)

Go around. (Things as small as a tree or as big as our hay barn and corral. Hand signals for directional.)

Touch my hand.

Bow

Play the piano

Up (Patting or pointing to object)

Jump (over my leg or other object or straight up in the air)

Climb a ladder

Back up a wall (In preparation for a hand stand)

Shake my hand

Other paw

Give me individual paws as I point them out.

Rear paw, front paw, or nose touches on command

Open the door (Jump on to push open or stick paw or nose in crack and pry it open)

Stand on hind legs

Walk on hind legs

Back up on hind legs

Back through legs

Sit before crossing road

Stay on the right side of the yellow line when biking

Get close (When a car is coming. Very little traffic on our rural roads makes biking off leash safe.)

Open your mouth

Put all feet on or in very small container, stool etc.

Turn on or in very small container, stool etc.

Ride a horse

Hold object

Heel

Front

Let's go or come on.

Go under my chair and stay

Place

Go to bed

Roll over (just started)

 

These are the actions he knows and not the commands.

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(Root Beer, out of curiosity, why won't you teach limp? I'm having a hard time imagining how to teach skip without the limp step in between.)

 

I have dealt way too much with real limping - the vet visits, the x-rays, the chiropractic, the supplements, the meds, the massage - with dogs who have had long term ortho issues to teach it as a trick. I don't want to see my dogs limping, real or not!!

 

Skipping is really just kicking front paw high, and alternating one and then the other. That is different enough to me to be fine. Limping would be the dog holding up one paw while moving.

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The limping I'm familiar with as a trick is actually limping on alternating legs.

 

 

Maybe you're thinking of something else? But I can't imagine teaching this as any way but teaching a limp (leg held up and moving) on alternating legs.

 

To be fair, you can teach something as part of a trick without ever naming it or making it a standalone trick.

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The limping I'm familiar with as a trick is actually limping on alternating legs.

 

 

Maybe you're thinking of something else? But I can't imagine teaching this as any way but teaching a limp (leg held up and moving) on alternating legs.

That's quite an elegant behaviour, and I've not seen that specific video before. I may try it one of these days. Thanks.

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Tina Humphrey teaches this without the step shown at 30 seconds with the "limp". She trains it as a high paw slap to the hand and then does them on alternating paws, using alternating hands. When the dog has it that way, she weans back the visual to get the fluent behavior.

I would choose to train it the way she does. That's one really cool thing about trick training. There are usually multiple ways to go about the training!!

 

src="http://www.bordercollie.org/boards/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png" title=":)" /></p>

Here she was training her Grace to skip . . .

<p>



Skipping Puppy

<p>
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Aahhh, guys. All this skipping/limping tricks - way over my pay grade. I need simpler tricks at the moment. I would be happy working on my dogs to back up in a straight line for a distance. [They will back up, but I don't have the distance nor the straight line.] ;)

 

Kristine, I am assuming that the skipping behavior is also trained on the other side? Just curious.

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Yes, left and right alternatively.

 

Skipping is totally above our paygrade right now, too.

 

Bandit will touch a pole with his paw and that's about it. We have so much more to do with paws before we would even look at that. Paw touch to my hand (each front paw, on cue). Alternative paw kicks (standing and sitting). Sit and lift one paw and hold it in the air . . .

 

Lots of paw work to do before we would even touch skipping!! :)

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I'm in too. Is it alright if we asked the forum how people train this and that? For instance, I also got Tess to back up, but only a couple of steps. How do I teach her to back up in a straight line for a longer distance?

And sitting pretty, we started at it last year, but never got past the luring stage, how does one get the dog to fully understand the behaviour?

She knows lots of commands, but not that many tricks, mostly because I feel a bit unsure about how to teach them.

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For instance, I also got Tess to back up, but only a couple of steps. How do I teach her to back up in a straight line for a longer distance?

I like to teach back up via a rear foot target. Then you can begin moving the target further and further away so they back up almost ad infinitum. The target is easy to fade this way too, once you've got good distance.

 

And sitting pretty, we started at it last year, but never got past the luring stage, how does one get the dog to fully understand the behaviour?

It depends. I made a video for how to teach your dog to hug, and at the beginning I go over how I like to teach a sit pretty. I also briefly touch on how I begin to add duration and fade the lure. You can find it here:

 

Basically, lure up, feed in position, continually to help build duration. At this point I may add a verbal. Then I begin removing the lure for brief periods of time. Then I begin to add more distance between the lure and the dog's nose. Then I fade the food lure and keep the gesture, rewarding from the other hand. Finally, I work on minimizing the gesture to become the signal for the behaviour from here on out.

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I'm in too. Is it alright if we asked the forum how people train this and that? For instance, I also got Tess to back up, but only a couple of steps. How do I teach her to back up in a straight line for a longer distance?

And sitting pretty, we started at it last year, but never got past the luring stage, how does one get the dog to fully understand the behaviour?

She knows lots of commands, but not that many tricks, mostly because I feel a bit unsure about how to teach them.

 

If I know how to train something, I am always willing to share. And if we all get stuck, I can probably find some Freestyle people to give us hints. :D

 

For backing, I train backing to a change of surface (toe board, cushion, disc, or even from hard floor to carpet. Once the dog is backing a few steps, I gradually increase the distance to the change of surface, and mark as soon as the dog's back feet hit the change of surface, and toss a treat to the dog. Build to the desired distance and work without a change of surface.

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What they said for the backing!

 

I like that we can all be in different spots in our training and works towards similar-themed goals.

 

How about paw stuff? I need to teach the puppy just how to touch my hand or an object with a single paw (as basic as can be), Keeper needs practice with skipping and refining our lift and hold. I taught him wave after lift and hold, and he's lost some ground. He has started waving during a hold, and this is a good reminder to fix it.

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I'm in too. Is it alright if we asked the forum how people train this and that? For instance, I also got Tess to back up, but only a couple of steps. How do I teach her to back up in a straight line for a longer distance?

And sitting pretty, we started at it last year, but never got past the luring stage, how does one get the dog to fully understand the behaviour?

She knows lots of commands, but not that many tricks, mostly because I feel a bit unsure about how to teach them.

Sitting pretty - maybe you can search this out, but the best video I have seen for teaching a sit pretty is from Lindsey/Lindsay Hinds, a well-known canine conditioning expert.

 

In short, dog sits and she holds the treat in her closed hand slightly above the dog's head (head tilts up a little bit), but instead of luring UP, she lures directly back. (parallel to the ground) She finds that too many dogs want to go up on their hind legs when the lure goes up even a little. I tried it, and was happy with the initial results. In the beginning, I treated if my dog kept his butt on the ground and lifted one paw for a microsecond, then then two paws - you get the idea.

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