How To Fix A Trick

brody_smom

brody_smom

Experienced Member
A while back, I decided to chain together 3 tricks: sit pretty, down, and play dead. I wanted to combine them into one big trick with the verbal/hand cues for freeze, bang, and you're dead. Brody picked them up pretty quickly, but I never really got the cues as clean as I wanted, so I put the trick aside for a while. Later, I wanted to teach roll over and roll back, which he has been really reluctant to do for some reason. He knows the hand and verbal cues for both, but will try to wait me out on doing them, hoping I will just forget and move on to something else. He's getting better, but I have to out-stubborn him most of the time. The problem is, I want to go back to the old chain, but he won't stop at "dead", he rolls over. I need to fix my hand cue for dead and/or roll over so that they are clear and distinct. Any ideas?
 
Evie

Evie

Experienced Member
hmmm, I think you'd need to re-teach 'dead' so that he has that firmly in his mind with which ever hand cue you choose. It needs to be distinct enough that he can do 'dead' and 'roll over' one after the other without mistakes. Then you may have to go back to the start and re-teach the sequence of tricks so that he learns that it's 'dead' not 'roll over' that is the final part of the sequence.

Well that's what I'd try anyway. It might be the long way of teaching it but I think you'll have the most success and least confusion this way :)

I'm so jealous that you've gotten this far with this trick!! I can't teach it to Evie because the moment I say 'bang' or make a gun shaped hand signal at her she launches at my face with kisses..... no idea why lol but she always has :p
 
brody_smom

brody_smom

Experienced Member
It was surprisingly easy to teach him, I really thought it would be much harder. He is very quick with the ones he likes, and incredibly stubborn with others.

So how can I re-teach dead? I lured him into it the first time. If I try to lure him again, he'll probably just roll all the way over. Should I try free shaping? Even with this, he'll probably roll over. I tried just stopping him when he was on his back, but that didn't work. Maybe I should just get him to flop over on his side rather than roll onto his back. I can't think of a good hand cue for dead. For "freeze", I point my "gun" into the air, then fire it at him for "bang", but I haven't figured out dead. I think I just turned the "gun" on it's side before. For roll over, I just draw two circles in the air, but I think he responds more to my vocal cue anyway.
 
brody_smom

brody_smom

Experienced Member
I think I solved it. I was working through the trick chain and when we got to the "dead" part I clicked when he was lying on his side. He immediately stopped and looked for his treat. Did this several times, and I think he has it! Will try again tomorrow to make sure. Still need to work on my cues, although he already goes quickly from the down to the dead without even a verbal cue from me. I just need to fine tune the "freeze" as I want him to hold his paws up high for a few seconds before he drops and dies.
 
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