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Trick Comands

12K views 106 replies 25 participants last post by  krandall 
#1 ·
So Diego, who turned 9 months on Saturday, knows sit, down, come and pretty much knows stay (we need to continue practicing stay...he knows it, but after 30 seconds, he gets way too curious) but I was wondering on how to practice a couple of other specific ones.

Do your pups know:

Paw
Rollover
Play dead

??

If they do, what way did you specifically teach them how to do them? Did they pick up on it right away? Diego picked up on Sit and Down really quickly, and come took a little longer.

We have a couple of dog trick books but I want to get your input first before I consult the books :)
 
#2 ·
Shake or paw is really easy. Just say shake and then touch their paw. They will lift up the paw, you shake it gently and then, of course, reward with a treat. My puppy learned it during our one hour puppy class. You can also teach them high five the same way.

Havs also are really good dancers, but that just came naturally to both of my dogs.

We are taking an intermediate dog class and we have learned,
touch
wait
place
leave it ( which is a really, really good one)
heel
and a couple of other things.

Cooper who is 5 years old is good at all of them. He is just there for a refresher and to socialize more. Tessa is 9 months also and not so good, but getting better.

These dogs love to learn, so just persevere. Good luck :)
 
#3 ·
Hi! Rollie has done really well with this. He knows sit, lay down, stay, "here boy" is our "come," "give paw," and roll over. It took him WEEKS to learn lay down and I really think he dislikes this - he seems to be very reluctant to lay down. So weird! He started to roll over the very first session. "Give paw" took about a week and a half, but I have to say, this is the cutest thing EVER. His paws are like muppet hands and when he holds it out it just kills me!

I'm trying to figure out what to do next myself. Maybe I'll do dance - but I don't know how to teach that.

I figured out how to teach "roll over" by watching a video on youtube. Basically you get the dog to lay down and then you lure him in a roll over motion with a treat. You start on one side of his face and bring the treat over his head. The dog naturally follows. It's kind of hard to describe, but I'm sure you can find multiple examples on youtube.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Try clicker training. Look up Karen Pryor's site. You'll enjoy it. Molly and I are working on her Math skills. LOL The trick to tricks is to take it slow, if your dog shows any signs of disinterest, you've gone too long.
 
#5 ·
Dave, disinterest? What about reckless exuberance? Lucy is much better at sit when I have a treat. She does not like drop (lay down) and I cannot get her to stand. She's too wigglely to get her to stand. Stay is the first command I literally saw a thought pass through her eyes and she checked herself. Pretty good for a 15 week old. We started working on shake aka paw this last Sunday. Again exuberance is her fault right how. She is so quick that it seems very sloppy. I hate to discouage her excitement though. We continuejto work on laying quietly on her side for grooming. Actually, Lucy is pretty much a spaz. I love her little motor sounds though when she's tearing around the house or yard. I love my little Lucy Loo.
 
#6 · (Edited)
For sure , at that age, it's hard to slow down their enthusiasm sometimes. Their attention span is short for sure. Somewhat like a young child. Keep the training short and sweet. And the key is have fun. Just watching them to me is fun. They're smarter than we think. They'll surprise you when you least expect it. Enjoy her youth . I goes by too fast. Thought I would add something. I just read this on the IAABC forum and I thought it was cool. As most people know here, I'm an advocate of positive reinforcement based training. and here is a quote that poses a question , ....."Simply ask yourself if you could achieve a goal by engaging the animal as opposed to imposing your will on the animal to achieve that goal. Sit with that thought for a moment."
 
#7 · (Edited)
I like this book. I think I've seen it at Petsmart/Petco as well.

I think it all depends on the trick and probably the dog. You also should try progressing. If he sits very well, try making him stay in a sit for longer. Or combine commands - he has to do a sit/down before getting a treat, etc. Make him sit and stay, etc.

Gracie picked up stay pretty well at first. Basically just make them sit and give them the command/hand signal for "stay", and slowly back away. If they come after you, give a correction "ah!" and go back to where they were sitting and have them sit again. The more you practice, the further away you can get.

That can also help reinforce "come" when you release them, because they're going to want to come running to you as fast as possible anyways. And we also use "stay" to hide a treat and have Gracie sniff it out.
 
#8 ·
I like this book. I think I've seen it at Petsmart/Petco as well.

I think it all depends on the trick and probably the dog. You also should try progressing. If he sits very well, try making him stay in a sit for longer. Or combine commands - he has to do a sit/down before getting a treat, etc. Make him sit and stay, etc.

Gracie picked up stay pretty well at first. Basically just make them sit and give them the command/hand signal for "stay", and slowly back away. If they come after you, give a correction "ah!" and go back to where they were sitting and have them sit again. The more you practice, the further away you can get.

That can also help reinforce "come" when you release them, because they're going to want to come running to you as fast as possible anyways. And we also use "stay" to hide a treat and have Gracie sniff it out.
Haha that's one of the books we have!! I was flipping through it right after we got Diego and I really thought about teaching him how to fetch me a beer from the fridge...but I think he wouldn't be able to carry the beer can in his mouth LOL And I think i'm going to try those combos until I figure out exactly what I want to teach him next...definitely good practice for the brain (his and mine!) :)

Everyone, thanks for all the advice and hints!! I appreciate it!
 
#9 ·
Ollie is very food motivated. ok, he's a pig in dog's clothing.
tricks:
down
sit
stay
leave it
drop it
shake (either paw)
touch (touches whatever you want with his nose)
heel
come

Hi (one paw up like he's saying hi)
high 10
jump - 360 with a 1/2 twist
jump - butt wiggle
dance (walks on 2 feet)
ollie oop (puts paws up on what you point to)
ollie off (gets off what you ask him to)
all the way down (chin to floor)
bow (like a play bow)
spin (tail chasee left or right)
bark
growl
the wave
counts to 15-20 by tapping his paw on your fist.
fetch
kiss
on your side
roll over

let me know which one you want to do and I'll tell you how I taught it to him, steps my vary with your dog.


I still want to teach him play dead and to cover his eyes with a paw on command. sneeze would be cool too.
 
#12 ·
Ollie is very food motivated. ok, he's a pig in dog's clothing.
tricks:
down
sit
stay
leave it
drop it
shake (either paw)
touch (touches whatever you want with his nose)
heel
come

Hi (one paw up like he's saying hi)
high 10
jump - 360 with a 1/2 twist
jump - butt wiggle
dance (walks on 2 feet)
ollie oop (puts paws up on what you point to)
ollie off (gets off what you ask him to)
all the way down (chin to floor)
bow (like a play bow)
spin (tail chasee left or right)
bark
growl
the wave
counts to 15-20 by tapping his paw on your fist.
fetch
kiss
on your side
roll over

let me know which one you want to do and I'll tell you how I taught it to him, steps my vary with your dog.

I still want to teach him play dead and to cover his eyes with a paw on command. sneeze would be cool too.
Ooooh...how'd you teach your dog roll over, on your side and dance? i think one of those would be a good next step in his training!!!
 
#10 ·
I love the trick "spin"! It took Mo no time at all to learn it. Had her sit first, then with the treat in my hand I made a circle above her head in the direction I wanted her to turn and said "spin". She turned around in a circle, following my hand, then she sits again and gets her treat. This is darling. Another poster on this site has two Maltese (sorry I can't remember her name!!) and I got the idea from watching a video she has on her blog of her two dogs doing it in tandem, TOO cute.

FYI, I tried to teach this to my Cairn Terrier and he just looks up at my hand and follows it with his eyes. Maybe because he knows he is so cute I'll just give him the treat anyways.....? Who is training who? :suspicious:
 
#13 · (Edited)
ok. first, my disclaimer, I'm not a professional trainer. I'm just a speech therapist, who works with a lot of behaviorists, and I've had a handful of dogs, been to a lot of dog training classes. and I have summers off (aka a lot of free time).

when teaching a trick, always reinforce 1:1 (one treat for each correct or almost correct behavior), meaning everything good behavior, even if it's close b/c you want to encourage the participation... but also, some frustration attaining the target behavior is good, b/c there is a 'release' when the actually execute correctly.
after the behavior or trick is consistent, put a hand cue on it, then when the hand cue consistent elicits the trick you can pair it with a word command.

'dance': was a 'capture' behavior, meaning that Ollie did this as a pup, walk on his back legs to 'jump' or reach me... so I started to give him a treat when he did it. I would dangle the treat above his nose and wiggle my fingers. now, he moves his body to how I move my hand/fingers. he gets the treat in 5-10 seconds of 'dancing'.

If I were to teach it, from scratch, or shaping, I'd get my dog to stand up on the back legs, then teach him to follow my hand for the movement.

on your side: it's when from a down, he flops over on his side. all I did was roll him over and when he stayed on his side for a second, I gave him a treat. I did it 3-5 time and he got it. this is not a recommened method of teaching a trick, it's my ghetto style. my hand signal is palm facing the ground, moving in a horizontal plane, about 2-3 inches back and forth a couple of times.

roll over: my little guy does a slow mo rollover, although he's getting better.
traditional roll over is taught from a down, then you lead the nose in a 1/2 circle from the nose to the tail base, over the backbone. if the dog follows it tightly with it's nose, his body will automatically rollover. I'm sure youtube must have it somewhere.
so you know how when dogs lay down, it's sorta a C shape. from the top of the C being the dog's nose, you lead the treat in a half circle to the tail (bottom part of the C), and over the butt. go slow when you start so the dog follows the treat with his nose.

by far the most crowd pleasing trick is when he says 'hi'. after your dog learns 'shake'... you shape the behavior to a 'hi', by not letting his paw rest on your hand like 'shake'. then you raise the paw higher by raising our 'target' hand, the hand he would normally target for a shake. eventually he'll mirror your hand waving hi with his paw coming up to say hi. it's super cute!

good luck!
 
#15 · (Edited)
Nike does a long list of regular tricks, but the one that probably would be considered unusual is riding a skateboard. Pam uses clicker training. It's easy when one is motivated by something, whether food, or a toy, or ball.

If you get someone who is good at clicker training to show you how, it's pretty easy. I doubt many can learn it easily from a book, although I'm sure it's possible.

See Carter's video of Watson on here somewhere. You can do so much more quickly with proper clicker training.

You don't need to stick to the clicker all the time, but it greatly simplifies learning for the dog. Pam can teach Nike almost anything in a couple of minutes. She often demonstrates teaching a new trick when someone comes for a visit. I think that had an influence on Watson's training.

edited to add: Sprorcid's description a couple of posts above is very good. It's really simple once you see someone doing it. Clicker training works the same way. You just use the clicker to mark the INSTANT you get the behavior you want. Pretty soon after they get the behavior, you can do away with the clicker. You don't add the word cue until they have the trick down good.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Ollie is clicker trained. it's quite simple.

buy a clicker, any pet store has it, $1.

then when you go home. using a trick, simple tricks, charge the clicker.
charge the clicker by asking your dog to do simple tricks he/she already knows and click the clicker every time they do it. right when they do it. do it every day for 5-10 minute for a week. now the clicker is charged.
straight up pavlov.

now you can use it to 'tell' your dog when he's doing the behavior you want by clicking at the exact time he is doing it right.

the clicker is used for training, not for mastered tricks (only when charging the clicker and you only do that once if you use it regularly).

so click when he does the roll over or part of the roll over, to tell him he's doing it right!

remember, give a treat each time he is doing the behavior you want (and click) and let him lick or nibble at the treat if he's close to doing it right.
 
#17 ·
Bow is probably the easiest of the tricks to teach:

from a stand, have the dog follow the treat (treat to nose, ok if he eats/licks it) and bring the head to the ground. if he is flopping down like a lay down. use your free hand, and give a gentle touch about where the rib cage ends, to keep the butt in the air, then remove the physical prompt.

I haven't thought of a hand signal to go with this trick yet.
 
#18 ·
Just to add to to what has already been said about clickers, it is important to treat EVERY time you click, even if you make a mistake and click when the dog didn't do the right thing.

You can also charge the clicker even if the dog knows no tricks or commands at all. Just click/treat, click/treat, click/treat about 10 times in a row. The dog will VERY quickly catch on that the click is followed by a treat. Then go from that to waiting for the dog to look at you. When they do, click/treat. Do that about 10 more times and you've got a pretty good charge on the clicker, and it's taken less than 10 minutes... probably less than 5!:).

As Tom said, the only hard part is the timing. To work well, it needs to be really precise. One way to practice this (and you don't need a dog to do it) is to have someone else bounce a tennis ball on the floor. Practice timing your click to the exact split second that it hits the floor. When you can do that consistently, you are ready to work with a dog.
 
#20 ·
Another idea about "stay" have them sit and stay then as you work on a longer sit or start to work on distance (back away one step) go in and REWARD the stay. So they are sitting and every few seconds get rewarded for the stay. If they get up just say 'oh well" and treat time is over. Once they get that the treats come in if they sit there, their little brains think gee this stay thing is pretty darned good!OF COURSE you do this in stages and don't continue feeding constantly. Your job as trainer is to READ your dog,quit when you are ahead,if you waited past her ability time or distance time change things till she is solid and try again. WARNING it is supposed to be fun not frustrating for BOTH of you! CHEERS!
 
#21 ·
Isabella knows all the standard tricks, except "roll over" and both my husband and I are at a loss how to teach her that one. When we try to lay her over, she ducks her head and refuses to budge . . .as though she's positioning herself for a reprimand. No idea where this is coming from . . .but clearly demonstrating roll over in this manner isn't working. Anyone have an idea?
 
#34 ·
Wish I could help, but I can't! I've never taught this, and though I think it's cute as all-get-out, and dogs probably love to do it, I do have SOME idea of where the refusal to budge might come from.

That is, leaning over a dog - looming over the dog - is very anti-calming! It's not something dogs do to each other when they're trying to avoid any sort of conflict - and a really healthy, well-raised dog will always try to avoid conflict.

So MAYBE your dog is trying to avoid conflict, by freezing in the current position - freezing is one of the canine calming signals!

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:20:53 (PST)
 
#22 ·
sprorchid, sorry don't know your name, had a good basic roll over info on this thread. Beware for some dogs (including Atticus) roll over is difficult,it took me forever to get him to lie down too. I have heard this is because these are submissive postures and some dogs just don't go there easily. If you are getting frustrated you might want to try some others. Dogs learn after awhile that you are trying to teach a new trick once you start doing it often so at some point the dog might be more ready than she is today to work on,what is for her, a tough one.
 
#23 ·
Yeah, I had to capture the down to teach it to Kodi. There was no way I could lure him into that position. And as far as rolling over is concerned, I gave up on that one. We tried the typical luring his head back and around while he was in a down, but he clearly finds it stressful. He does so many other things so well, it seemed like it wasn't worth fixating on something he clearly had an aversion to.
 
#24 ·
Our newest trick is "be a bear." Rollie stands up and holds his front paws up like a grizzly bear (we had fun with this). The hand signal I chose is a closed fist held about waist high. He's really good with this, but will still jump at times so now I'm only treating really good examples of the behavior - standing, not jumping.

We still can't get him to speak. NOTHING makes him bark except people outside the window and the vacuum. So I'm using the vacuum. All I have to do is take it out and he'll bark. Unfortunately he hasn't learned to speak. He's very fixated on that vacuum. I'm not sure if he's even hearing my command.
 
#37 ·
Our newest trick is "be a bear." Rollie stands up and holds his front paws up like a grizzly bear (we had fun with this). The hand signal I chose is a closed fist held about waist high. He's really good with this, but will still jump at times so now I'm only treating really good examples of the behavior - standing, not jumping.
We want to see Rollie "Be a Bear"!!! Video please!:whoo:
 
#25 ·
Hello out there, Phoebe and I have been off the forum for quite a while.
--If you are looking for tricks, definitely teach "peek a boo". Phoebe loves this one so much, and I don't know why. In an emergency, I almost think I would try Peekaboo if she didn't respond to "come".
--If you are having trouble with roll over, I have some suggestions. Phoebe can only figure out how to pull her muscles together for this if she is on a carpet. Odd, but when we took doggie training the teacher mentioned sometimes dogs have trouble on slick floors for some reason. She can't roll over in the kitchen, but she will do it on the carpet. As far as helping teach the trick, start from a "down" position. Note where your dog's legs are in the down position. If they are out to each side of the spine, they will not be able to recruit the proper muscle action. You need to make sure they are on one hip in the down position. Then somehow they are able to figure out the movements. Our dog trainer actually suggested teaching a different down command called "easy" which indicates to the dog they need to lay down, but on one hip, and that this command suggests that they will be staying and relaxing in this position for some time. It's a good one to use before a "stay".
--Other fun tricks for Phoebe are "right" and " left" turns. She loves them. She can remember her right from left when she practices, but otherwise she just does a few of each. it's really cute!
--we also taught her "aw shucks". Didn't really perfect it, but it's still cute. This one is good with clicker training. The idea would be to have the dog slowly swipe her face/ eyes with one paw. We taught this using postit notes and a clicker and lots of treats. She got the basics in ONE SESSION. Put the post it note on your dog's muzzle. You know exactly what they will do right away!! Try to wipe it off! Click and treat. Within a couple of minutes, she saw the postit and would start with the paw! We never shaped and perfected it, but it would be easy. Now when we say "shucks", she does something between a face pat and stomping one paw on the ground. It's still cute. Another really good time to teach this is as they wake up in the morning. Many dogs will find themselves lolling on their back after a good night's sleep and will be naturally prone to slowly swiping their face. Be ready in advance with clicker and treats for morning training. This is how our trainer taught it, and her dog is really good at it.

We need to work on something else too, but have been to busy to think about it!
 
#26 ·
The other clue for roll over is again to do click and treat when they first wake up (if they loll on their back). you could have treats stashed in advance and click and treat as they move from back position to a roll. You might get a few repetitions each day if you're lucky. A key advantage of clicker training is to use it at times when you expect to see part of your desired behavior. Predict when your dog is likely to display part of what you want to capture, and reward them for doing what is natural. This will really get their attention. Will also diffuse the submissive "I'm waiting for a reprimand" behavior you are seeing- which would certainly be blocking your dog's ability to be open to learning.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Peekaboo:
Your dog is somewhere across the room
You stand there with legs very slightly parted and say "Peek a boo!!!"
Dog runs as if in a "come" but goes around your back, and peeks head out between your legs. "Peekaboo".

It's very very cute. Make SURE not to treat if they come past your legs... it's just the peek part that earns the reward. Otherwise, you're teaching some sort of doggie dance move.

Shape the behavior by having dog in front of you, and cue them to follow a treat around to the back and treat as their head peeks through.

When they have it really solidly, you can play sorry tricks on your dog by standing too close to a wall, or having your legs closed when you ask them to peekaboo. Phoebe suffers trying to figure out how to get to the peekaboo for her treat when my kids pull that on her. Sad, but cute (better make sure your dog can be successful and earn that treat!). However in this case, nothing detracts from her peekaboo enthusiasm, it's all good fun.

 
#29 ·
LOL, I got such a kick out of watching that video, Phoebs . . .thanks for the demonstration :)

We definitely need to work on roll over, but knowing Kodi hasn't quite gotten the knack of that one gives me encouragement in a strange sort of way because he strikes me as über-smart. Thanks for sharing all the pointers :)
 
#33 ·
Click , treat Carol. :whoo:
 
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