Dog Park Fun

On an unseasonably warm day last week, the dogs and I decided a trip to the dog park was in order. They left the park quite satisfied, and extremely muddy. Enjoy!

Chicagoland Shetland Sheepdog Specialty

Went to the Specialty with Nike today. It was a great opportunity to get him some socialization, as well as to watch AKC Obedience and Rally trials. I'll be showing Nike in AKC Rally before APDT, so this was a good opportunity to take note of the differences. As well as the fact that a bunch of exhibitors were REALLY nice, and helped Nike feel more comfortable.

Honor's Rally Runs

I finally got around to uploading the videos of Honor's second and third qualifying legs of her Rally title. Enjoy!

Rabbit Fun

So, Nike has seemed pretty calm when the rabbits are bouncing around, so I decided to bring him out into the living room when the buns were out and about. He was leashed initially, but I eventually dropped it when it became obvious that he was NOT interested in eating the rabbits. I'm so proud of him! He was such a good boy.





And then we practiced Rally for a bit...



And took pictures of the rabbits...





Lots of fun!

Trick List

Tricks I want to teach the dogs in the future:

Honor
- Handstand
- Weave through legs
- Back vault
- Back stall (pretty much complete)
- Jump into arms
- Jump over arms

Nike
- Weave through legs
- To roll over in both directions
- Stand (how could I have forgotten this one so far?)
- Take it
- Jump over arms

Eli
(note: Eli needs a lot of foundation work right now)
- Handstand
- Jump over arms
- Roll over
- Drop it
- Various assorted basic obedience commands

And synchronized roll overs for the three of them. I'll try to post videos and/or updates of how we do!

Unison Spins and Nike Rolls Over

The dogs and I had fun clicker training new tricks in the last few days! Eli learned the "Spin" command, and then all three learned to do spins in unison. Then Nike learned to roll over!

Spins
To teach Eli to spin, I lured him the first few clicks so he could see what direction he should be moving in. I lured his head back over his shoulder with a treat, and then clicked when he followed its movement. After that, he kept turning farther and farther for the treat, until he has executing the spin with no problem!

Then, I had all the dogs line up in a front sit position, and gave them all the spin command and hand signal (making the hand signal much larger than normal). The first few times, one of the dogs would either not complete the spin, or veer off course, but after a few tries, the dogs had it! It's actually quite cute to watch them all spin together.

Roll Over
Nike learning to roll over was pure shaping. Nike LOVES the clicker, and eventually tried laying down, which he got C&T for. After he figured out that laying down was good, I upped the criteria, and clicked only when he leaned in the direction of the roll over. After he figured that out, criteria was upped again to C&Ting for laying down on his side. And so on and so on throughout the movement of the roll over. We spent maybe 20 minutes on the roll over, and now he's solid on it! He's such a smart boy.

Honor and Eli and I will be shaping a doggy handstand over the next few weeks. A few people on iDog and I are going to try and teach this. I love trick training!

Eli Can Sit!

Eli now sits! He caught on pretty quickly, and will now sit every time you ask him to.

I shaped the sit by clicking and treating every time his butt started to move toward the ground. I also shaped the sit in the presence of Honor and Nike, who showed him what the sit was supposed to look like. Eventually he realized that he got a jackpot when his butt touched the ground. Now, he runs around and sits for everyone, hoping that they will reward him.