Sunday, May 3, 2009

High Fives - progressing

We were practicing at the club today on our 'tricks' - especially our 'high fives' - and managed to get this short video clip. He's starting to distinquish now between the signals for raising the left and right feet. I think the next step we will work on is for me to cue him with my legs instead of my hands. I'll have to look at Honey the Great Dane's freestyle video again to see how that's done : ) We're also starting to work on the 'backing' on signal, but we haven't progressed very far yet with that. He's just starting to get the idea and backing up a few steps now.

This is a nice break from the more serious utility training. Wish I could figure out how to make that more fun and games : ) I think the difference is that there is no right or wrong when teaching tricks - you just go with the flow and reward the responses you like.

5 comments:

The PR Gang said...

He's go the high five down! He's so cute doing it too.

Jennifer H. said...

Woo-Hoo!!! Go Jackson!!

Honey the Great Dane said...

Yay! Jackson! That is so cool! Love your High-Fives!

About cueing with your legs - first, ask your human to raise her hands a bit lower, with palms up and out to you - then when you are used to that, ask her to lay her hands on the top of her thighs, with the palms up. Then, instead of raising her arms to move her hands to give the cue, get her to just raise her knee, with her hands still resting on her thights. This should make you give your paws...then once you're doing that really well, ask her to take her hands away (put them behind her back, so she doesn't give any extra cues by mistake) and just raise her knees. Just do 1 knee first and reward/praise for that only. When you're doing that really, well, do one knee and then the other knee - and lots of reward/praise. When you're doing 2 knees really well - then she can try doing 3 knees in a row, then 4 knees, etc...I can only do about 6 max before I lose interest! :-)

For the backing, it helps if you're standing next to a wall or some other long, narrow thing (best thing is in a corridor or between 2 rows of chairs or cones, etc) - then reward you for 1 step first, then 2 steps, 3 steps, etc...but doing it this way means you won't start curving away when your human steps forward and you'll learn to back in a straight line.

Hope this helps and keep up the great work - more videos please...we LOVE videos!!

Slobbers,
Honey the Great Dane

Kathie R said...

Hey, thanks for the advice Honey! We'll try those suggestions and let you know how it goes.

Jackson

Honey the Great Dane said...

Hey - I have tagged you to play a game - please come over to my blog to find out what you have to do.

Slobbers,
Honey the Great Dane