So far, Loki's best trick is his "bow." It was a little serendipitous how I taught it to him in the first place. Teaching that trick is actually not that easy. Dogs sometimes will go straight into a down rather than a bow. I won't divulge my super secret methods in training the bow, but suffice it to say, it isn't actually perfect yet. Loki sometimes does these "cheater" bows where he'll just stamp his front paws and lightly lower his chest like an inch thinking that's good enough. What I want him to do is hold the bow, low, without putting his butt down. And depending upon his drive and his anxiety level, his bows become shorter and shorter. Which means I need to work on his duration in the position in order to drive the point home.
Here is at a beach class performing his bow in front of an audience. In this environment, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being high, 1 being none),Loki's drive is 15 and his anxiety is 47. See what that does to his trick performance.
"Loki, Booooowwww"
Loki bows in 0.000006 seconds.
"Bow, Ok, bam, I'm down."
Me still cuing the bow, the trick's not over. Elapsed time: 0.75 seconds.
"Hey I bowed, I'm ready for the goods."
"Dude, you're so not done yet, I said, 'boooooowwww.'"
"Lady, if you don't pay me my just reward, I'll be forced to whip out my kung fu on you."
"O.K. lets start over. Calm down you little crack pot. You're making me look bad."
"Lady, YOU'RE the one giving ME a bad rap. But whatever. I'm juiced and ready to roll."
"Loki Booooowwwww."
"Ok, we did this already, I didn't get paid for it so maybe I'll just stick my but up...then..."
"Then I'll walk over to this side here and...
"Ok, the bi-ped is still doing that bow thing, so maybe she wants me to do it from this side..."
"Pay attention bi-ped, here's your damn bow, ."
"I believe this is just like they bow in my home country and all of Asia."
"Are you satisfied bi-ped?
Give me the treat or this time I will really will pull out my kung fu!"
Meanwhile, Juno is very lady like in performing her best trick, the Juno Mind Trick.
"Juno 'sit pretty'."
"Dude, I am already pretty. That trick name is about as creative as paint by numbers. But here you go."
Juno: "That is not your hot dog. This is not the sibe you're looking for."
"Hotdog, come to momma!"
"Ah yes, sweet reward for such a silly game."
So, why am I not surprised with this one?
Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra The Furry Special Siberian Husky
PeeEssWoo: My pantyloons need no modesty patch!
Love the modesty patch:)))
TD can't sit pretty on his bottom for anything, but Phantom does it with flying front paws - it is a scream to see:) Now that bow is something else, if only he would hold it.
woos and happy weekend, the OP Pack
OMG-- modesty patch! Classic!
I think I've been doing something wrong. If I want Sugar to hold a command (i.e., "stop" "sit" "bow"), I follow the original command with a "stay." Otherwise, I haven't cared if she holds the command until the release ("okay") I can see how my method is confusing to her, though, and she overcompensates by waiting for the release command, regardless of the "stay"....make sense? Thank goodness it is never too late to retrain the owner!
Wooos! Mom uses a wait command to make me hold a position but only when we are still in the learning phase, after that I have to stay until released, but alas she does not make me try many tricks, I wonder why, maybe it is be cause I am husky?
-Kira The BeaWootiful
Jackal actually holds his bow until I reward him. 🙂 The way I taught it (when he was a pup) was by holding a treat under a chair so that he had to bow to reach under the rung and get the treat. I just withheld the treat for a few seconds after he began to understand what I was asking and slowly extended the time he held it.
When he was doing that pretty well I held my arm parallel to the ground and lured him into a bow under it. Using the arm is nice because if his elbows didn't touch the floor I could push lightly against his head with my arm. For small dogs you can do this under your leg if you sit on the floor and bend your knees in front of you slightly. Eventually I just faded the arm. Now he does it all by himself because he knows that's the one that gets the big praise and treats. 🙂 Good luck!
You guys do tricks? Why?
Woo.
Luv,
Dave
I see that Loki has his eyes on MWD just in case Juno knocks him over and treats go flying!
Princess Eva
I must say that thanks to my furry butt, I've never needed a modesty patch, not even before the nasty blue-coated people cruelly stole my doghood.
Bricey
hello! thank you so much for visiting our blog and leaving a nice comment about scarlet. thanks for telling us about popeye, we sure will visit his foster parent's blog.take care!
Tricks. Sigh. Oh wait, there is a hot dog involved. Maybe. If it suits us.
You should license that patch. 🙂
And your new blog header is the bomb!
Loki you are one talented pup. We haven't even attempted the bow. Not sure what sign we would use for that with the deaf ones.. I, gus the Blueman, can do sit, down, rollover but I tend to do them all at one time for the treat..
Big Sloppy Kisses
Gus, Louie and Callie