Training Thursdays: 12/02/2015

I have moved away from Clicker Training this week. I've done this because I feel that Pixel responds better to verbal praise. Previously I have had great success using a clicker with other dogs but for Pixel it doesn't yield the same results. In a couple of months I may come back to Clicker Training, especially with the intention of teaching more complex tricks.

This week Ruthie asked me to focus on teaching Pixel the Stand command. I think most people will agree that teaching Stand can be a little tricky. The way I have been teaching Pixel involves putting him in a Sit before holding an item of food in front of him and slowly moving it away. When Pixel stands up I say "Stand", before I praise him and give him the treat. He seems to have taken to this trick a little slower than others but after practice it appears that he is learning the command, especially with the corresponding physical movement on my part. To further reinforce the command, we have been chaining together the different positions (Sit, Down, Sit, Stand).

We continued to practice Bow this week. I am happy to report that Pixel now knows the command. The way I have always taught this trick is to bow toward the dog and have them bow toward me, I feel like it adds a certain level of enjoyment and fun to the trick as well as providing a prominent visual cue for the Bow.

Finally we have began training on Roll Over. The going has been slow on this one. Lurchers and other Sighthounds can often struggle with this trick because of their large, narrow rib-cage. I have been placing Pixel in the Down position and moving a treat slowly around behind his head. For the time being I am rewarding him for looking around while remaining in the Down. I have attempted to build on this further by trying to encourage Pixel to lay on his side but currently all this has yielded is several dog punches to my face. We will continue to work on this trick but I am aware that this might take awhile to teach (I deviate slightly into Play Dead, but I will just have to see how we progress).

As always, if you have any suggestions for tricks that I should teach Pixel, or have any questions, do feel free to ask.

Training Thursday: 05/02/2015 Edition

This week I have decided to clicker train Pixel. This first involves associating the sound of the click with a reward. In theory this should allow me to rapidly reward the dog and eventually allow me to do shaping training, where Pixel will repeat the action he believes that I want. This in turn allows us to build up more complicated tricks but also requires Pixel to think about the actions he is preforming.

While we have been establishing clicker training, we have also been working on learning how to bow. We have made some progress in regards to this, Pixel is now aware of the basic principle of what I want, and he will do the trick when I preform a certain physical movement. We need to build on this further so that he will preform the trick on vocal command.

Once we have completed learning bow, we will next be working on learning roll-over.