Teaching a hand stand

 Well I hadn't had chance to get back to this till today - and today was only the second go at it.  So, less than ideal and a bit behind... kept it short and sweet and she quickly started walking over the book, trying to work out just how she was supposed to stand/move on it to get the click.  By the end she was offering "putting feet on the book" A LOT, MOST of the time using her back feet, but not every time...sometimes she paws at it with her front feet and looks at me like "come on I am DOING IT dang it all!".  I think this is my fault, my timing might be a bit shoddy... Like i said before, she offers stuff FAST.  It's a challenge to catch the one I want. 

When I tried a recap with Max he caught on extremely quickly, walking over the book and shifting his paws, and then when he worked out what "worked"... refusing to move.  We got to that point twice in just a few minutes and I ended it there.

Edit - Haven't worked out how to get a video of this WHILE I'm clicking and treating... not enough hands, sorry!  Also - I forgot to pick the book up and Dell hs taken a shine to it.  She is lying on it....

Chuffy

Haven't worked out how to get a video of this WHILE I'm clicking and treating... not enough hands, sorry!

I'm going to try it with both Honor and Eli today.  We'll see if Eli catches on, and if Honor can still do four cookbooks.

 just popping in to say since it was another rainy day here I tried this with B - he usually catches on super quick but a) I couldn't find a big enough book for his normal stance back legs; and b) he seemed to just think I had lost my mind so he did all sorts of other behaviors.  It was very funny though

as for video'ing it I made this lame video of B learning to blow bubbles - he sort of comes in and out of the frame because the only way I could do it was to hang the camera around my neck - OK so B was right I have lost my mind LOL

 So, I need to figure out how to prop my camera up on something to take a video of Eli.  He was standing on the stairs yesterday with his back feet propped two steps up behind him, and I was like, hmmm, perhaps I need to be teaching him do the handstand!  So we tried it out, and he caught on SO quickly.  When we ended our training session, Eli was propping his feet up on 4 cookbooks and two 2-3" inch textbooks.  Rah!!!

 When Ena is healed from her spay surgery, I'm so teaching her this. She LOVES trick training. She does "tell me" and "bow", along with basic obedience. A handstand would be fun for her. I will have to find something that doesn't sound like another command to call it (bow is too close to down, and it's a slight issue).

I did begin teaching it, with all three, but I'm setting it aside for awhile as I'm doing a lot of work for Gaci's agility. I think I will keep working on it with Shimmer, though, although we only did two sessions so far so don't have much exciting yet.

 I video taped Neiko's progress on the hand stand. However, since Bobbie has gone missing i haven't had time to edit it. He is doing pretty good though! I have him getting his back feet up on a 1' high box against the wall now. The next step is to find something higher. He just eats this stuff up.

Lily was getting it too until the box collapsed and scared the crap out of her lol. 

Abbie wasn't interested. She was too funny and eventually laid down on her side and looked at me and sighed - like "Sigh - you're so lame, mom" I got that on video too ;p

Okay, finally getting around to doing this! This is Shimmer at the first part of the handstand - two feet on the phone book. One more session with that and we'll be putting it against the wall! Will have video at the next *big* step.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH0N7Sol3F8

 Looks great!  She seems at ease with having both of her back feet on the book, I can't wait to see the next video.

I'm going to work on this again today.  I've let trick training slide in the last two weeks because of how crazy things have been, but I'll try to take a video of this today!