Overachiever!

[tx_cowgirl]

Today, I revisited some reeeeaaaalllly old tricks with Mud that we haven't done in a very long time. One of them was "Bring me a Kleenex." She started off doing great, hasn't forgotten a thing. She'd pull one out of the box and bring it right to me without hesitation.

Then, she decided to be a smart alec. She decided she was supposed to bring me the whole box, not just one Kleenex. I can't decide if she was being an overachiever by bringing me more than she's supposed to, or an underachiever by not wanting to bring me one at a time! LOL! Made for a good laugh, anyway. She tried to bring me the whole box a few times, so I managed to get her to bring me one Kleenex, then quit before we both got frustrated.

We also worked on "Hut, hut, HIKE!"(her football hiking trick), which we haven't done in so long that I can't even remember how long ago it was. Well, since we've been working on picking up anything I drop, you can imagine how this one might have confused her. At first she kept trying to pick it up and bring it to me without even trying to paw at it. So this one took a little work too, but in a few tries she had remembered it.

Sometimes Border Collies are too smart for their own good. LOL! :msngiggle:

 

[srdogtrainer]

Will you please describe your football hike trick. I started one with River where he does a bow and puts one paw on a football. Now my plan is to teach him to pull his paw backward to shoot the ball behind him. Is this similar to your trick?

 

[tx_cowgirl]

Sure. ^^ For Mud, I didn't teach her to bow, she just paws the ball back between her back legs. I clicked for touching the ball with her paw several times, then didn't click and waited for more. She got frustrated and forcefully shoved her paw on the ball and it squirted out behind her foot, not very far, but the idea was there. Click and jackpot. When she understood she had to push the ball backwards with her foot, then I gradually just expected more force and better aim until she was flinging it right through her back legs. If River doesn't get frustrated easily, getting him riled up might help(if he works well when he's crazy--my dogs work best when they are nuts, but you know River :dogsmile so that he uses more force on the ball so it really flies.

I used Kyra Sundance's lesson in her 101 Dog Tricks book, tailoring it to what I knew worked better with Mud.

Hope this makes it a little clearer. I would upload a vid, but for some reason my computer has always had trouble uploading videos. :dogtongue: