Thursday, July 1, 2010

Teaching Dog Tricks



Not all dog trainers teach the same way so I always try to learn something from every trainer I see even if they aren't my overall favorite. This trainer is trying to teach her dog the difference between on, under, and behind. This must be a really smart dog because the trainer speaks so much that I begin to wonder if the dog can pick out the command from all the other words. I think often times we talk to our dogs as if they understand every word we say but I don't think I would use that method in training.

She uses a reward marker of "x" which I am guessing stands for excellent. Normally when I think of using a reward marker you only use it when the dog accomplishes the action. She seems to use it to also communicate that the word she said is the action she wants which I think could be confusing to some dogs if used in training.

I thought it was clever of her to use three of the same toy so that the dog would not associate the toy with the command. Using a hand signal may have been more effective that using so many words. I think her overall approach to training would be hard to recreate or teach to others but it was clever to teach him the difference between on, under, and behind.

1 comment:

  1. I also like to watch different trainers and pick out the things I find useful. There is no cookie cutter way to train a dog. Different dogs learn differently. I wonder if the dog in the video ever learned the 3 different words, on, under and behind.

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