Uncle Frank's New Tricks
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Today is Frank's six month birthday. Happy birthday puppy!
Teaching Frank a new trick goes as follows;
Teaching Frank a new trick goes as follows;
- Get him to do it. This involves a lot of man handling, holding, tutting, scraping, injuries and shouting, but he will calm down.
- Obtain treats and bribe him. This step is essential for the future ones. Once he is on board and understands what is at stake (treats), you will have his attention.
- Get him to do it again. And again. This is important – keep doing it, treats and all. Just plying him with treats works well, but there’s a key final step.
- Get him to do it whilst he’s being fed. The stay command was a difficult one, and one we’d emptied bags of treats into, but once I started to make him stay before he got fed his dinner, and he made the distinction that “If I wait, I’ll get fed”, it clicked. He now stays better than he sits, the silly dog.
There is a zeroth step – when he does it by accident and we
give him loads of unexpected praise.
Current roster of tricks as of November 2012
- Sit
- Stay
- Shake a paw (left and right)
- Lie down
- Catch a tennis ball thrown to him in his mouth
In the plan:
- Roll over
- Shake both paws at the same time
- Jump on command (and stop jumping at any other time)
- Place a treat on his nose and he waits
- Play dead
- Play chess
- Drive a vehicle
- Type
