Yesterday I began teaching Ace the command roll over. To teach this, I started with him in the down position. Then I held a treat over his head and moved it to one side so his body followed and he was on his side. I continued moving the treat and encouraging the mutt to roll onto his back and finally onto his other side. He doesn’t have this figured out yet and flops around like a dead fish when I try to get him to roll onto his back.
As far as his four other commands, he is improving. He has “bang” down most of the time and is getting better at crawling. A trick to get him to crawl is to line up several treats in a straight line in front of him so he has to crawl a few feet to each treat. This works best if you don’t have a food-crazy cat trying to steal the treats!
I worked on each command for about a minute or two each and Ace did a lot better than normal because the training sessions were so short. He did each command three or four times and then we stopped before he had a chance to do them wrong.
Today was day 16 of my 30-day challenge to teach my dog five new commands. To see my other 30-day challenge posts, click here.
Ha! The cat stealing the treats, that must be quite the comedy. The “Bang!” is my favorite so far.
Apryl DeLanceys last blog post..Wild World of Wednesday – July 16, 2008
Roll over is one of the hardest ones for Brutus and Rufus to get. They dont want to do it with all the coaxing and treats. I hope one day they will “get it”
Saint Lovers last blog post..The Big Splash