Introducing Cruz and Amy

[cruzer]

Hello there
I found this site through someone on a forum for american pitbull terriers. I am a member of 2 breed specific forums. I obviously own an APBT. Cruz is about 8 months old and quite a challenge but very trainable. He was just diagnosed with extreme case of hip dysplasia on his back right hip. Im looking for some tricks we can learn to keep him mentally stimulated while we are awaiting surgery and after during recovery.

We live in Rockford IL, Im a 37 year old single mother and live with my youngest son who is 13 years old. I work beyond full time as I am a store manager.

Im currently looking for a way to teach Cruz to pick up items and put them in a basket. I found a cheap $1 toy basket with plastic food items in it at Target. The key is to teach him not to chew this cheap toy!

We dropped out of basic obedience, as the trainer was a correction based trainer, rather than conditioning positive behavior before hand. My dog cowered, lowered his tail, stared at the door for his escape route the last 3 sessions. Since then I have taught him...

Sit
Down
Stay
wait
up
stand
off
leave it
drop it
take it
shake
other paw
move it (back up)
look at me (an awesome command!)
touch
Target

and he rings a bell to go potty now.

Thanks for letting me join!

 

[tigerlily46514]

:welcome: So glad you found us!! Sounds like you are doing a wonderful job with your dogs!! KUDOS!!
ha, i laffed about the basket, that IS Buddy's all time favorite toy of ALL!!:dogbiggrin: He has several that are his!! Hevier ones for outdoors, and some light weight cheapos for inside.

His toys get put into a wicker basket, which he has learned and accepted that he cannot chew or even push around the wicker one, but the plastic ones, i don't know how i'd keep him happy :dognowink:without those darn baskets, ha ha!! He loves them best of all!! He even 'herds' them!! Plays with them for hours sometimes!!:msngiggle:

Somewhere on this wonderful website, someone has posted video of a dog learning to pick up his toys..You can surely ask how to teach that in the "tricks" section, if no one notices you here.
I did get Buddy to do this, but, honestly, now i can't recall exactly how i taught this. Buddy's pick up is kinda shakey, we don't do it super often...

So Sorry about the dog's hips, dang, what a heartache. Hope he is up and recovered real soon.... somebody around here also was looking for stuff a fairly immobile dog could do to entertain/use his dogmind, got some good answers and ideas from our members......, i'll try to find that.