Cat and Dog Blog

New dog tricks and agility equipment?

Hey, I asked this question a loooong time ago lol but didn’t exactly get the answer I was looking for. So I would like to teach my dogs new tricks, but I can’t think of which ones to do. These are the tricks my dogs can do, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdTICaf6A90&feature=channel_page in our other videos they can also bow, stand, and Dakota can say hello, but what other tricks could I teach them?
Another question, I was wondering if Petco has good agility equipment? http://www.petco.com/Shop/SearchResults.aspx?Nav=1&N=0&Ntt=agility It’s the cheapest equipment I could find, cause I don’t want to spend to much, but I was wondering cause its so cheap if the quality is bad or not.

1. On agility equipment, skip the Petco crap. Some of it is mediocre equipment but it’s all overpriced. Go to affordable agility. Get “agility in a bag.” For $150 you get 2 adjustable jumps, 6 PVC weave poles, a mediocre tire (add irrigation tubing from Home Depot and it’s fine), a useless pause box (save the PVC and use it to make other equipment) and a fine chute (ie: closed tunnel). All of that for $150–to get all of that from Petco would cost you $350! Then for $50 you can buy PVC and a PVC cutter at Home Depot or a hardware of plumbing store. You can make 6 more weave poles and about 4-6 jumps for that price.

2. Easiest way to teach tricks is through behavior shaping. And in order to do that, you need to learn how to do the clicker. It’s what all serious animal trainers use (SeaWorld, US Navy, hollywood and advertising handlers).

I’ve taught my dog:
–to jump into my arms
–to weave between my legs
–walk backwards
–crawl
–turn a toilet paper tube on it’s side and then roll it with his nose
–turn a box upside down and then climb into it
–learn left and right (I teach “circle” and “spin” as directional commands)
–climb a stepladder up and down on his own

Right now we’re working on a handstand. And of course we also do agility. All of this is do-able with behavior shaping.

If you want some ideas of amazing canine tricks, I have two suggestions for you. Go to the website below. It’s for Silvia Trkman of Slovenia who is a topnotch agility competitor. She believes that training dogs in tricks is really important and has some great videos of her and her dogs doing a range of tricks–they’ll give you some ideas. Then, go to Youtube and google “Britain’s got talent” and “Gin”. Watch the canine freestyle of the BC Gin and you’ll get more trick ideas (btw–Gin’s performance is good but not really mindblowing–most canine freestyle teams are at that standard–again, a result of behavior shaping with a clicker).

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