Hat tip to Gina S. for sending me this one!
Notice how the dog is fixated on the owner's face and how little movement the owner is doing? This is clear two-way communication, and as a consequence the dog is pretty ecstatic to be able to take direction and get it right.
Tricks like these are built up out of little parts that are learned and assembled and chained into longer sequences, and almost all of it is done through rewards-based training (food, play, touch, toys) with a little physical modeling to start things off in some cases (i.e. walking on front legs).
Like human tricks, such as learning how to juggle, throw a knife, or do freestyle with a Frisbee, teaching a dog to do a trick is simply a matter of a little instruction and the discipline to keep at it over days, weeks and months. Most dogs can learn to do such simple tricks as "bang, you're dead" or to retrieve a ball or Frisbee over a low barrier, etc. Spend 15 minutes a day teaching your dog a few tricks, and inside of six months you will have a little routine of your own!
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1 comment:
Not opposed to this at all.
Tricks are a valuable part of a dog's training and repertoire.
The problem comes when people teach obedience as tricks, even way past the basic learning stage, and then get otherwise hacked off when the dog one day blows them off in favor of a more enticing reward. You know, the classic "He knows it, he just won't do it" line.
Oh yes, he knows it. They just haven't given him good enough reason to teach him that he has to do it each and every time, which is where the real-world, results-based balanced trainer comes in :)
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