in the Dog Agility thread, Aunty Jam says they're both mutts, "Kelly (in front) is a Siberian Husky cross," and "Chase is mostly Border Collie"

I know it sounds silly...but have any of you taught your dogs to "talk". I was really bored & searched it on Youtube...it is a bit of a vice for me lol. That is what happens when you have a lot of free time So my Corgi (Midgey) now "says" I love you, mama, grandma, & let's go (that one is for when my bf is taking too long to get ready) lol. He does anything for a carrot...hence why he is also now on a diet lol.

Loki is a pretty quiet dog, I have never heard her howl at all, and she usually only barks at strange noises outside the window at night or when she gets really excited playing with her doggie friends. i'm not sure how I would start to teach her to "talk"

I recently taught her "speak" but she's not perfect at it yet... again, she's not vocal and usually the first response is a little soft mumble, and when she does bark, it's always with a little hop, like she's getting ready to run away. I am not sure why, but I think it's because she doesn't want to bark at me.

oh yeah, and Loki loves carrots, too. I usually eat them for a night snack and she will lay down next to me and look at me with the sad eyes whenever I have any.

Gotta love those "please feed me" eyes.

I have an Italian Greyhound who can jump a barrier twice her height while holding a can of cat food in her mouth. She'll do it every time.

My Rocky doesn't do any one trick that's really impressive, but I think the fact that he's deaf and learned them all with hand signs is the amazing part.

sit - palm up
down - palm down
wait - one finger up, like you're saying "one minute"
stay - hand up like "stop"
crawl - drag you finger along the floor
come - normal "come" sign, waving your hand towards you
play dead - that one should be obvious
rollover - trace a circle horizontally with your finger
spin - trace a circle vertically with your finger
get on your spot - point to where you want him to go
high five and low five - just like with people

I think that's it for actual tricks. He also does some agility and he knows signs for all the normal words that hearing dogs pick up like food, car, outside, etc.

The funny thing is that we didn't realize he was deaf at first. He graduated his puppy class without us knowing. He picked up the required commands just from the unintentional hand movements we made with the treats!

nice!

Stacy that is awesome! Rocky seems like a great pup

Stacy: That is really awesome. My border collie - Aussie mix Asia is 6 months and I teach her both verbally and with my hands and its amazing to me that many times she doesn't need to hear me say anything. Pointing or making a certain motion many times gets a reaction.

One of Asia's more recent things is the water command. She is such a smart dog I didn't even mean for this to happen..we play Frisbee and since its been getting warm out she gets hot very quick due to the fact that she has the black fur that lays down like a Border Collies but its longer because of the Aussie in her. So for the last week or so we have had a crock of water out when we play and when she would get hot she would go over to get a drink by herself and I would say "good girl go get a drink" and soon enough after that happened a few times i would point and say 'go get a drink' or 'go get some water' and she would go over and take a brief drink and then look at me like "Okay mom can we play now??"

I'm so proud of Asia recently! Finally getting the hang of 'catch' and thanks to you guys on here, she is making progress with roll over..she has been getting stuck half way and will lay on her back sometimes instead of completing the roll..but i find it cute! Hopefully with more practice she will get a hang of catching the frisbee better and she can be a disk dog! She certainly has potential!

Doesn't if feel great when they "get" something? I remember trying to teach Rocky to play dead and it took forever. It was totally my fault though because I couldn't figure out how to tell him what was expected of him. He was so cute trying to do all these different things. I could just picture him thinking "what the heck does this lady want from me?" LOL! When we finally got it I was sooo happy.

I hope you and Asia have fun practicing with the disk!

When I was going to graduate school (living with my parents) I taught their maltese to sit, sit pretty (upright), speak, play dead when you pretended to shoot him, and to roll over. And to sneeze on command, but he was so obsessed with treats that if he got very excited he would forget the commands so he would try all of them in quick succession (starting with the sneeze and usually ending in rolling over and over and over).

My sisters also taught him to play "king" (they were 8 and 10 at the time). He would lie on his back in a werid sitting/lying position on a pillow and they would carry the pillow around the house like it was a processional.


When my brother and I were small we had a sheltie-beagle mix who we'd taught to play ball (not just catch, she'd "throw" the ball back). We used a wiffle ball that was a bit too big and slippery for her to catch. So, one of us would sit opposite her, throw the ball and when she'd catch the ball and try to bite it, it would shoot out of her mouth back at us for us to catch and throw again. So you could play "catch" with her until you got bored with it.

We taught her tons of tricks, mostly obstacle course stuff (a lot like agility training, but we thought we invented it). For example she'd climb a ladder (but we could never teach her to come down - she'd jump from a step ladder to the ground or from a full length ladder into our arms, but would never go "down" the steps).


I don't have a dog right now. Hubby and I have a fat old cat, but I've taught her a few tricks. She learned sit pretty (sitting on her haunces) before she learned sit. She'll wash her paws on command. She'll come when called (she's a typical fat girl - very motivated by food treats). We're working on fetch, but laziness gets in the way. She'll plop on the floor and look at us with what seems to be a "you've got to be kidding" expression on her face.

The cat we had before her, I trained to sit on the scale so I could weigh her without having to weigh myself at the same time. I only ever used praise (she had the personality of a small dog - always following us around the house, always "talking" to us, always begging for attention). Every morning when she heard me get the scale out, she'd come racing around the corner to sit on the scale. Problem was, I could never get her off the scale without calling to husband asking him to call the cat to distract her so I could weigh myself. We trained her to walk on a leash, and we'd take her for walks. She was a lot more distracted on walks than a dog would be, but for the most part she walked pretty well on the leash. Especially if hubby was in the lead (she would have followed him anywhere. She liked me, but she adored hubby).

I am so EXCITED and proud of Asia (and myself) tonight! Shes catching her frisbee in mid air like a pro at 6 1/2 months!..It's taken several days of working but tonight it finally clicked..i was so happy because she has been -fetching- but not -catching- the Frisbee for 2 1/2 months..when I got her to catch treats last week and then toys I knew I was on my way so I tried several techniques and she was sooo close to getting it down every time..usually she would drop it or it would land a few feet away (she would stop short) or it would hit her and bounce off..Tonight she made her first true catch and I was so excited I did a dance right there in my yard! Once she realized what I wanted her to do she became more consistent and in like 5 mins she was JUMPING to catch it in mid air..I have been waiting for this moment it seems like forever so I can start disk training!

kaplods - I too have trained some of my cats to do things. They will come when called, especially with a "Psst" sound and rubbing my fingers and thumb together almost like the 'money' thing people do..Fidget Digit and Bandit will all do the sit pretty thing ("Pretty Kitty"). Digit will fetch is he is feeling playful and Bandit sits in the empty seat at the kitchen table and will physically paw at my moms elbow for scraps.