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Maybe not really a "problem" per se, but there's a trick I'd really like to teach to our pup (a 2,5 year old berner). I'd like her to go and fetch her food bowl on command. Admittedly it's because I'm lazy and her crate is literally at the other end of the house from the kitchen. She knows basic commands, sit, down, come etc but nothing complicated and honestly I suspect she's really dumb. It took her a week to learn down with succesful repeats every day. She has really good memory tho, once she finally catches on she will remember. Very food motivated, which is actually a huge problem when trying to get her to concentrate on what she should be doing. Teaching her fetch took ages because of this, she just wouldn't touch toys when food was available even tho she carries them around otherwise. I haven't reinforced fetch in ages tho, she used to do it on command but always seemed to think it was a really dumb activity. She also doesn't respond well to verbal cues, they seem to get mixed up. With hand signals things generally go pretty smooth. I tried teaching her this trick before, but just ran out of creativity. Would this require a clicker? I was kinda thinking of trying one out anyway at some point, so I'm not really against the idea. I'm pretty sure the bring part wouldn't be a huge problem, since she has learned fetch before. But I just can't make her interested in taking that stupid bowl into her mouth. I'm pretty sure I'd get her to lick the side if I smeared some butter on it, but how would I progress to her actually picking it up? Maybe I should leave the bowl and teach her a pick up command with toys, like picking up whatever I'm pointing at? Then try to apply it to the bowl? She's very delicate with her mouth, always very careful about anything strange or not known food. Oh and on a tangent, any tips on making her understand a verbal recall? She doesn't recognize a recall unless she sees the person calling her, I've seen her just standing, listening and looking really confused when someone out of sight is calling her. Usually a problem outdoors where echo and distance seem to warp the voice.
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Nov 11, 2010 17:07
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 07:11 |
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a life less posted:... Thanks for the reply! This is really what I feel is the hard part, I just can't think of anything I could do to make her mouth the bowl. Any suggestion on the breaking this step further apart? I gave up at this point last time. I got her to touch the bowl when asked, but nothing I did made her the least interested in mouthing it. I'll grab a clicker anyway next time we stock up on doggie food, and play around with it because it sounds like fun. I think I was maybe a bit vague on the recall thing and got misunderstood. She has a pretty good recall, combination of a verbal cue and a physical one and is more than happy to obey. But once she can't see the physical cue and the verbal cue gets distorted she just doesn't understand it as the same thing. She responds to verbal only cue over short distance/indoors, but over longer distances she only understands the physical one. I had fogotten this part earlier actually, but when you call to her when she is 100/200 meters away and can see you she just looks at you stupid, but as soon as she sees the physical cue she will come running. My mum has a theory that she just doesn't know where the sound is coming from when she can't see the person calling, which might or might not be true as well. The echo is really bad once you have to shout to be heard because of the lakes. I know she can't find people once she gets lost from them on a walk and she hears them calling and is desperate to get to them. She's been this way since she was a pup, in other words somewhat stupid. I wouldn't dream of walking her off leash anywhere she doesn't know the (safe) way home from because of this. Which is the forests of our summer cottage basically. She defaults to the start of the route/ home once she gets lost and is just too happy when you finally come to get her. Did I mention she's adorably stupid? Never gets up to any mischief because it never occurs to her! Maybe a dog whistle? She might still not know where the sound is coming from, could at least recognize it. Do whistles get distorted by echoes? On hindsight maybe the whole question was kinda stupid.
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Nov 11, 2010 20:19
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