Trick question

    • Gold Top Dog

    Trick question

    Lately I'm trying to teach Kenya some fun tricks.  So far, we've done a lot of work on formal commands (rally, obedience, agility....) so I'm trying to lighten up a bit.  I taught her a nice tight spin, right or left.  Now, we're working on doing a figure eight around/through my legs, starting and finishing sitting at heel.  Luckily, she is a small GSD so it's not too difficult.  I thought it would be a cute trick to show off, plus her original agility training told me that doing spins and figure eights around the legs are a good warm-up for agility. 


    If I bait her with a treat, she can do the entire behavior, start to finish.  I say "Kenya...eight!" and then lure her all the way through (she goes around the front of my left leg, through, around back the right leg, all the way around to the front of the right leg, through, around back of the left leg, and sit) and when she is back to the sit, I praise her and say "good eight!"  Do I continue baiting with the treat going through the entire behavior?  Or, do I need to break it into pieces first?

     

    • Gold Top Dog

    When I have taught this I break it up - lure and reward for going throught he legs, then for half an eight, then the whole thing, then get rid of the food lure and finally tidy up the cues (my GSD girl's cue is just my moving my leg out a bit and saying "weave";).  I don't name it until they are doing the whole thing. I also train a step further, until the dog will leave through my legs while walking - lotsa fun! Course the GSD gets excited and barky sometimes and her teeth end up hitting my legs - OUCH! LOL but that is the joy of having a high octance dog ;)

     It sounds like you aren't rewarding her until she is done and sitting - that is actually rewarding the sit and not the weave behavior. Being a GSD she'll probably catch on anyway but it might take longer.

    • Gold Top Dog

    I sort of let her nibble the whole way through.  I don't really stop and give her a treat at the end.  It's in my hand the whole time and as long as she keeps going, she keeps nibbling. 

    • Gold Top Dog

    When I tought this, I faded from holding the treat in my hand the whole time, to leading with my hand, no treat in it - treat at the end, to no leading at all...  I suppose it might be easier to break it down, but if she is used to following a lure and she can make the leap to follow your hand - you probably won't have a hard time...

    • Puppy

    It sounds like she's getting it. Breaking tricks down into component steps is great when the dog is failing to grasp the whole picture. But if she is doing the 8 already then I would keep on reinforcing it as a complete trick. Otherwise you might teach her to do half, then the second half, and then end up where you started! 

    I have found in training tricks that one of the best ways to proof the behavior is to set my dinner on the table and position myself near the dog in a way that she could show off her trick if she was trying to impress me and win some food. This is not the official training style, but I often find their knowledge goes up significantly if they perceive a chance at some hamburger. If you have your dinner ready and she starts busting out the figure 8, then you know she understands the action and probably only needs reinforcement on the cue word.Stick out tongue