What should I teach my boys?

[DogGoneGood]

I want to teach Coal and Linkin some new tricks but I can't think of anything... Coal already knows a lot more than Linkin, Linkin only knows a couple of tricks.

I want to teach them something unique, possibly something they can work together with. I thought about teaching them to high five eachother but Coal has this "no touching" rule with Linkin If Linkin so much as touches Coal with his tail Coal gets all grumbly about it. Reminds me of two little kids 'don't touch me!' ;D

So then I thought well maybe I could teach them musical chairs. My instructor told me about how he taught two dogs how to play musical chairs... but I don't think I really want to teach my boys to fight over something, they do enough of that as it is.

I just can't seem to think of anything unique yet logical to teach them. Coal also has arthritis so no jumping or anything like that for him. And Linkin is still learning not to CHEW on things so not a whole lot of 'picking things up' that I can teach him unless I can teach him to soft mouth first... which I tried once but was damn near impossible... maybe now that he's calmed down and matured a LITTLE bit I can try it.

So any suggestions?

[rexandbaby]

I will go through all my books that have tricks in them, then see if I can help!

[nattiej1976]

i always thought it cute when one dog pushes or pulls the other in a pram or trolley of some sort

[DogGoneGood]

nattiej1976 said:

i always thought it cute when one dog pushes or pulls the other in a pram or trolley of some sort

What's a pram or trolley?

And I don't think either could, or would be willing to push the other in anything lol Coal's body isn't well enough for him to do it, and Linkin probably wouldn't be strong enough. They're both pretty big dogs too.

[rexandbaby]

I just want to say that life got in the way I will check out the books tomorrow! (I hope)

[rexandbaby]

Find and bring would be a good one.

The shell game
I started this with Rex just 3 days ago, and now Baby is the queen of finding.
I have 3 buckets, like what a kid plays at the beach with.
I put them in a down stay, and place the buckets about 1 1/2 feet apart. At first, I let them see what I was doing, but now I don't. Put a treat under one bucket, then say find!
When they try this the first time, as soon as they nose the right bucket, say Good, and knock it over so they can get the treat.
When you do it the second time, they may go for the first bucket, don't do anything until they choose the right one.
I now have 5 buckets, and they are about 3 feet apart, and I make them sit in front of it until I release, and they can knock it over by themselves to get the treat.

I fed them both their entire afternoon meal this way the first and second day, and they thought it was great.
After our walk, they slept like puppies!

I am trying to teach crawl, but haven't had too much success with that yet. I guess that is because they both know the down/stay and are afraid to move.

I have a few other books that I want to look through, but am getting ready for my trip, so it may be a week and a half before I can check them out.
Donna

[DogGoneGood]

Oh yeah, I taught the shell game to my chihuahua when I was 7

They way your two know it now reminds me of school when we did Cadaver training. Linkin didn't stop and sit at the correct bucket like the other dogs however... his tell was... pick up the bucket and RUN like heck! LOL

[rexandbaby]

LOL! I found with Rex I had to remove the handles!

[lilredridinghood]

Teach them the "GET ME A BEER FROM THE FRIDGE" command. That would rock.

[DogGoneGood]

Haha, actually I had a dog who could do that Except I trained her with water because she didn't have the best grip so she'd drop it a lot.

I'm still not too sure what i want to teach them... although you talking of Roll Over made me think I should teach Linkin that. Coal knows it but Link doesn't!

[lilredridinghood]

Did you end up teaching Linkin roll over? Does he know play dead? I love seeing Coal do that. It cracks me up!

Did you teach them them to cover their eyes? I've seen dogs do that. When they are laying down they put their paws over their face. It's pretty cute.

[DogGoneGood]

Actually I haven't gotten the time or motivation to teach them anything Maybe I will try tonight!

Yeah, unfortunatley Coal's Play Dead isn't going to win him an acadamy award anymore. He doesn't do it the same as he use to and I think it's because his joints are hurting more now. He use to make grumbly noises and toss his head around and then dramatically THROW himself to the floor and lay perfectly still (although sometimes his tail would still wag ). Now it's less dramatic, but I still think it's quite impressive

[DogGoneGood]

OKay, it only took about 5 minutes and I had Linkin Rolling Over! ;D Now it's like all he'll do

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Em9AjcwN4

Sorry the video is so dark, there isn't a whole lot of light in our house at night, it's poor for photos and videos anyway. But here's a video of him rolling over tonight