Special Saturday edition of tRicky T-Day!

It's a stretch but can you kind of see how Saturday is a T day?

I am still learning how to hold an object ( a dumbbell ) and do various tricks while not dropping it. The blooper video that could've accompanied this trick video would've been the way longer movie! But for now here is my progress:

(I want you to know that I offered the BANG! all on my own!)

Am I getting closer to being able to hold the blanket and roll over with it? When mom gets brave enough to try again, we'll see! :)

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Working on a New Trick

So Mom has wanted to teach me (force me more like it) to pick up my toys for a long, long time. We thought we'd share with you the great progress I have made - hehe!

I think it's going well, don't you?

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

tRicky T-Day!

We made a new friend on YouTube the other day - Tim and his poodle Tassilo - and we were inspired right away to learn a new trick from Tassilo's video! Tassilo does is much better than me and also does more than I do, but I wanted to show off my new trick any way for this week's tRicky T-Day!

Actually getting that far was pretty easy - mom rolled up the towel and told me, "Nose" and I went right over and started unrolling the towel! Then mom just had to say, "Down"! She wants to call the trick something like "Let's go to the beach" so she is starting to say, "Beach, nose" to me - you are supposed to put the new command before the old one when you are teaching a new command and then eventually you can fade out the old one. And in the video, you can't see mom but she isn't doing anything other than what you hear - like no special off-camera signals and no telling me to lie down - that's all part of the trick now. Maybe someday I will learn how to roll my towel back up and carry it away like Tassilo does!

We're still trying to figure out how to edit Flip videos - all the videos we have made lately were put on YouTube directly out of the Flip software. So they take FOREVER to upload but come out looking awesome in HD. This one we made for today by converting the MP4 to AVI (with free converter software called AnyVideo converter) and then put it into WMM. So we got to use WMM , and the upload time was quick, but the video quality is horrible - even though we used an HD camera. This is crazy. We might end up having to spend money on editing software, but it's too bad because WMM does enough stuff for us and we are comfortable using it. Why can't everything just be compatible with everything else? Can't we all just get along - lol!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Happy Holidays 2009 edition!

Here it is - my holiday video!! And it could also be considered my tRicky t-day post too! Hope each and everyone of you has the happiest of holidays!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

tRicky T-Day!

My friends Johann and Gracie posted their "take off sock" trick last week and it looked like so much fun that I wanted to try it! Mom thought it would be another good lesson for us in shaping a trick. In our first session, mom said "yes" and treated me for touching the sock with my nose, then for touching it or almost biting it with my mouth. And then she tried to only say "yes" if I grabbed it (even ever so gently) with my mouth. During our second session, mom finally got smart and put the sock on VERY loosely (only really on her toes) and then upped the ante by only saying "yes" if I pulled on the sock and eventually only when I pulled it off! We edited a lot of video out - we didn't want you to sit through 8 minutes of me just touching the sock or digging or lying on the floor. It is exhausting to learn tricks this way - having to think on my own! I much prefer being told or shown what to do! In the next session mom is going to use an even smaller sock. BTW, my shaping treats are cheerios - they are good for me because I get the reward but it's not a treat that excites me so much that I can't think straight! The other interesting thing about this sock trick is that I love socks - I have one that I tug on all the time. But you'd never know it from how cautiously I approach this sock on mom's foot! You would think I never tugged on anything before in my life! I know, weird!!! What can I say?

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Free timing for tRicky T-Day

Well we tried free timing again - this time with a pillow instead of with a box. We had a little better success this way. I offered several behaviors - putting my paw on it, then my other paw, then digging, then both feet and elephant, and finally nudging at the pillow with my nose. You can tell when I get stressed out and you can tell that mom and I really don't know what we are doing. She doesn't have very good criteria and she doesn't treat me for small enough behaviors and she tries to get me to move to the next behavior too fast! But it was fun and pretty interesting. We were inspired by Ludo, Oreo, and Honey to give this another try. So here is our video (by the way, you have to have a lot of free time yourself to watch this long video - I won't be offended if you skip around!):



Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Tricky T-Day and Dogwalks

Another Tricky Thursday already - summer is flying by. July 4th is this weekend - where is the time going?

These are easy tricks but mom thought I looked cute doing them.

Yesterday we went to agility practice at the club - haven't been there in a very long time. It was fun to see everybody and fun to practice on real equipment. We set up the dogwalk and ran it a few times. Then mom decided to try a target - she put some chicken at the one end and showed me that it was there and then led me away to the opposite end and said "walk it!" - Well, I RAN it! My fastest dogwalk ever. (Still not Miley or Sizzle fast). We tried it several times and it worked really well. (Mom had her Flip camera with her but forgot to ask someone to tape us! Silly mom!) So now mom is all excited and can't wait to try again. Next time we'll start putting a jump after the dogwalk with the chicken on the other side of the jump. Guess that's the way to progress? We know that I have to get faster or we'll never make it through an excellent course within the time allowed. We rigged up a "dogwalk" in the backyard and we're trying a hoop at the end to get me to understand that I need to run all the way to the end of the board. Today we'll try it with a target too.

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Tricky T-Day

Ludo had a great idea the other day - he wants others to join in on his Tricky T-Day by posting videos (or pictures or words) about tricks they are working on or tricks they already know. T-Day can be Tuesday or Thursday. So today we are posting a very quick and short video showing a couple tricks I already know - cross paws and bang! I learned cross paws pretty quickly using a target, but bang! took me forever to learn. I knew what it meant but I wouldn't do it! I feel vulnerable when I have to lay on my side like that. So now I do it - but I won't perform the trick out in public yet.

We get most of our trick inspiration from watching YouTube videos. Some of our favorite channels include kikopup, zsianz1, yolle555, xsaricka, katsdogs, and justjesse197. We think it is absolutely amazing what all these dogs know how to do! Mostly these dogs are clicker trained - I'm not - mom didn't know about clicker training when she got me. She taught me a lot of my tricks by luring but she also uses "yes" as a marker word. She has been debating whether or not to start me on clicker training but for now we're just sticking with what we have been doing.

It's just a brief video but hope you enjoy it:

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Cabin Fever (and agility and tricks too)!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted anything! The weather has been so COLD and mom and dad have been working a lot, so I've been doing almost nothing! Mom and I are real diehard walkers, but Thursday morning I cried "Uncle!" because the ground was all snowy and the temperature was 8. I'm tough but my paws just couldn't handle it. So yesterday morning and now today we haven't even tried to walk - yesterday was -12 and today is -5! The good news is that today's high should be 20+ and mom says we'll walk in the afternoon!

Enough about the weather! Thursday night was our second class in advanced agility. We missed practice on Wednesday morning since mom had to work, so I was raring to go on Thursday night! We did a lot of sequences again and worked a lot on rear crosses again. It was really good for mom - she learned more about how to keep her shoulders straight approaching the jump and to use her dog-side arm to push me over the jump while she then rotates her shoulder in the new direction and moves laterally in the new direction. Homework is to practice rear cross on the flat so we've been doing it several times a day.

We'd like you to know that we finally mailed in our entry for our first trial - we decided to run on just one day - February 14 - JWW in the morning and the Standard course in the afternoon. There is another trial two weeks later and we might run both days then. We'll see how it goes!

To keep busy in the house, we are still working on tricks - here is our latest:



Hope you all have a great weekend! I hear that I am off to visit grandpa and grandma! Yay - finally some action around here!

Gotta zoom!


Ricky

The First Real Week of the Year

Well today starts the first real week of the year - meaning back to work and teaching for mom and dad. We did have a great couple weeks off - the weather was actually pretty good for a few days in there and we got out and did some fun walks! Mom took me to our favorite city park a couple of times (she never remembers the camera when we go there for some reason). Dad and mom also took me to the cemetery - some of you might think it's a little creepy and weird to go walking in a cemetery, but this one is a fabulous place to walk - lots of big trees and big areas to wander around in. And unfortunately lots of places to make me pose and not smile for the camera!

On another day we went up to the lake - you know the lake where we went camping back in August. No camping or swimming this time but we did go on a hike.

The water is really low - it's hard to tell in the photo but mom and I are standing on top of a bank and it's about 4 feet down to the ground from there. Usually the water is all the way up to where we are standing.

This is a view from the end of a new trail we discovered.

We have also done quite a bit of backyard agility practice working on some of the handling exercises from Linda Mecklenburg that have been in the last few issues of Clean Run and also just working on speed and faster weaves with harder entries - no video, of course, because mom never gets it together! This week we start our advanced intermediate agility class on Thursday nights. Looking forward to running longer sequences and learning how to handle them. Mom says we are entering our first trial in February (AKC at the barn where we have been going to watch trials since I was a pup). I notice that she hasn't mailed in the entry form yet - I think she's nervous and getting cold feet! Come on, mom, we've been training for a year now and it's time to see what we can do! (I bet she wouldn't be nervous if she knew that I promise to stick with her - no sniffing around - and promise to do the chute!)

When the weather is too cold or rainy we work inside on tricks, etc. We've got a bunch of tricks in the works including backwards circle and rebound. We just saw some excellent videos of these two tricks - one by Sian and one by ChiDaisy.
There are so many good dog trainers posting how-to videos at YouTube! It is a wonderful way to learn new things!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Cross paws

Mom and I love this video that shows how to train a dog to cross his paws! We have been working on this trick since we watched the video, and I can do it!! We used a small square of yellow paper as the item that I first learned to touch. And since we don't do clicker training, mom would say "yes" whenever I touched the paper. It took awhile for me to get the idea. But now she can just say "cross" and I cross my left foot over my right. Guess now I'll have to learn how to cross the right over the left? Any way, hopefully Emily won't mind our posting her video. She does amazing stuff with her dogs Kiko and Splash! We love to learn tricks and Emily is a real inspiration!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Tricks

I love doing tricks almost as much as I love agility! Mom and I have been learning new tricks for as long as I can remember. I keep bugging her to help me make a trick video. This week mom finally learned how to use our video camera and the tripod. So with a little planning, we should have a trick video up on YouTube soon! In the meantime, we need some new ideas for tricks. I think we know the basic ones. Right now I am working on walking backwards (eventually I want to weave backwards through mom's legs (I already can do it frontwards), cop cop (standing between mom's legs with my feet on her feet and walking), push a door closed (I do touch and then I do scratch at the door which isn't exactly push!), and today she started teaching me how to nod my head and also to jump over and go under mom while she does a push-up (kind of). I would love to learn to do a handstand, and we've seen some great videos on YouTube about how to teach it. We also love to check out Dog Trick Academy for advice and ideas. We have never done clicker training, so we do the best with tricks that can be taught with a food lure. Mom usually alternates teaching me tricks and teaching me the formal obedience exercises to keep it fun. All she has to say is, "Ricky, do you want to do lessons?" and I'm right there by her side! So if anyone has any good suggestions for tricks, let us know!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky