Just Got The Best Idea

[reveuse]

while watching random dog videos on youtube ...... saw someone's video of homework for one of silvia trkman's tricks classes and she was using a target to teach Cross Paws . When I taught Ro I had shamelessly googled the how to guide and did it from Shake in a down position - to this day he (who crosses his paws naturally when lying down and ALWAYS sleeps with them crossed) doesn't have it down at any sort of decent distance signal. -- I plan to go back in the next few weeks and really work on it with him also tho.

ANYHOW now that ive rambled as always.... At adv class thurs they were all learning Touch and since Whis already knew it , I taught her "use paw" and ''target" (as two different things ) .......
SOOOOOOOOOO when I am done with my long weekend of extended babysitting torture I'm gonna teach Miss Whisper to cross her paws using the target method and see if its better

Sorry this post was uncessarily wordy..... If I didn't write this down tho I would totally forget to actually do it

 

[fickla]

You did teach using a target, just a target of your hand instead of an object I don't think it makes any difference at all whether using a lid (or other object) vs your hand. The key step in either is fading the target as quick as possible and getting the dog to offer it.

The one advantage a lid has over your hand is that you could get distance on it with the target still visible whereas that is is impossible using your hand. However I would personally fade any sort of target and get the dog offering it before I attempted distance.

Anyways, good luck in mastering it!! It's a super cute trick.