So this will be the fastest blog post whipped up ever… I have to be out to work in 3 minutes.
I wanted to share the latest Video of Luna, this time it is her going through her trick paces. She knows more tricks than this but it gives you a good idea of how our sessions go at night sometimes. Hopefully YouTube will be kind and comply with my embedding
(score! Looks like both are showing up, so I shall not touch it and hope for the best)
Those are just a few of her tricks, she also knows how to roll a ball, “gun-sling”= alternate paws, down, balance a treat, shut doors, tug and probably some others I am forgetting. See how fast I have to go to keep her interested? If I slow down much she will just start throwing things at me, so I usually do things in rapid fire.
My favorite is probably the play dead off “Bang” I am thrilled with how quick she picked this up, and I love when she gives me a bit of lip about it too. She also knows that it does not count unless her head is all the way down, so sometimes she will pick up her head and then put it back down, clever girl.
I have been kinda working on her opening the fridge, but I think I am going to switch that to opening a cooler, maybe eventually fetching a gatorade out. I also want to teach her to pull my socks off.
Do YOU have a trick you want us to try?? Or that your dog can do that you are especially proud of??
Now on a totally unrelated note, please go over to Karma Collars and vote for Luna. We have been trying to win one of their beautiful leather collars for a while now, but just can’t seem to get enough votes (sooooo many bully breed fans out there that rally together, me thinks). And hey if you see a dog you just HAVE to vote for and it isn’t Luna, we won’t hold it against you. But you can only vote once I believe. The theme for this contest is “Best Bark.” You all know how much Luna likes to bark, as seen in this video
So if you have a moment, and think she deserves a pretty leather collar please go vote for her.
Okay I am done promoting, have a wonderful Wednesday
Vizsla Inspiration 
Great tricks. Freighter liked the barking. 🙂 I liked the play dead. 🙂
I bet he did! I like to see my dogs reactions to playing videos of other dogs. Pretty funny how interested they get sometimes. I love her play dead trick, probably one of my favorites thus far. I should complicate it and think of a whole scenario that she has to act out before it. Thanks for watching 🙂
Luna’s howl after the “bang” command is hilarious. I’m pretty sure Luna’s favorite trick is “speak” ;-). BTW, you guys definitely have my vote.
She is a trip, if only I could get her to do that every time. And yes her favorite trick IS speak, she was doing more of it for me because I was trying to get her to do her “speak softly” too. Thanks for the vote! we are up against a paraplegic rescue pit bull… gonna be a hard one to beat.
Isn’t trick-training the most fun thing ever? I actually just finished teaching Shiva how to bark on cue. Unfortunately, I seem to have created a monster. Now she is offering barking all the time when I am trying to shape a different behaviour, which gets obnoxious to say the least. I should have predicted that… Oops.
I do have a question… Do you know how to teach a dog to toss a treat in the air? I am able to get Shiva to balance one on her nose but instead of tossing and catching it, when I give her the get it cue, she just lowers her nose and eats the treat off the floor. Every resource I’ve checked says the dog will just toss the treat naturally. Is my dog broken?
And I have voted for you! Good luck!
Yeeeep, I already had Luna giving me lip when training… teaching her to speak only amplified her wanting to “offer” this when I was not looking for it. Goes with the territory lol, I wasn’t going to keep her quiet either way. Her second default is to smack with her paw lol, still working on that.
I don’t really know how to teach Shiva to toss it, Luna did it on her own, though plenty of other times she would do the same with her toys… just let them fall to the floor. Maybe you should teach her “toss” as a trick or “catch it” and toss treats for her to catch in her mouth. When she starts to anticipate you throwing/tossing it for her then she’s getting it. I would do a bunch of tosses real fast in a row, then get her to balance one and quickly tell her to “catch it” or whatever word you taught. Maybe it will get things going. OOOOr here is a really crazy idea, is there a way you could make whatever it is sticky? So it won’t fall off her nose to the floor but she has to sort of shake or toss her head to get it? I know that sounds crazy but somehow she needs to start doing that motion. Let me know how it goes.
Thanks for the vote too!
Haha! I didn’t know dead dogs could chew…I love it!
HEY! thanks for commenting. I tried to comment on your blog like 6 times about the tracking post but it was being mean and didn’t let me… any ideas? I tried to find a way to get ahold of you but couldn’t. Luna is pretty funny and sometimes she brings out the sarcasm in me 😉
Impressive!! I will work with Loker this summer once school is out. Great job with Luna! I have become fascinated with the trick where the dog back up on to a wall or a ball and stand there with their back legs up on something with their front feet on the ground – sounds pretty challenging but you asked for suggestions! I don’t think this would be too much for Luna either.. 🙂
Thanks, this is one of our goals this year… to learn more tricks as a means to work her in the evenings despite the weather. SO far so good. I have seen the makings of the handstand you speak of. We have worked a bit on Luna’s rear end awareness but it is SO not her forte so it is hard to get her to back up let alone move only her rear for much of anything. We may attempt to work toward it, but if we ever accomplished it I think we would just die of shock. Let me know if you ever run into some genius idea for working on rear end awareness.
Another trick I was trying to teach her was to jump onto my feet and balance.. we may touch on that one again.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Haha! I need to work on rear end awareness with mine too! I just wrote a blog about an exercise we tried (and failed at because of me!!) So check that out. Basically just teaching to rotate his back-end around an object while keeping his front feet in the same spot. I think it is possible, just have to take it slow, I dont think it is impossible for any dog.. Good luck!
Yep, we have worked on that one, she does alright but is not a pro at it, and prefers one direction over the other. But maybe it is time to work on that one more. All the videos I watch on that one just make it look so easy they don’t ever have to deal with what I do while trying to teach it.
I was bored so I came back to watch your video again and saw your comment 🙂
I’m not sure why, I know someone else mentioned that they couldn’t comment and told me what to do to fix it, I thought I had! I am so not a techie.
Oh and I love Amber’s trick of “weave between my legs”, I’ll have to video it one of these days. I’m sure Luna could learn it easily if she hasn’t already!