Trow A Blanket Over Your Head - Need Help

Mr-Remington

Experienced Member
LOL and do you have to 'take cover' to protect your shins?:oops:
YES! lol You outta see him with his jolly ball. He can't rip it apart and it frustrates him so he throws it around and shakes his head. Its quite adorable but painful when he hits me. ;)
 

Mutt

Experienced Member
Update:
I might have found the right way to teach this Boef!
Like I mentioned my dogs need a task when mouthing otherwise they will just simply drop it. Targetting while mouthing also isn't really succesful. So know I'm using their tidy up skills.
I'm now asking for a pick-up&drop (put the object I'm offering on the the other object I'm offering/pointing out) with a dish towel. I let them put the dish towel on a large plate, raising the plate step by step. Untill it gets at a point in which they can no longer put the towel on the plate by dropping it. Boef doesn't jump so I'm almost positive she will trow the towel up to get it on the plate. This I can than transfer to trowing up the towel and than to trowing the towel on her head and finally asking this with a large towel.
We are now at the leveling part and it's going very well :)
 

srdogtrainer

Experienced Member
That does look interesting. Maybe we will play around with it a bit. I am wondering if it was one of those tricks the dog just kind of offered and was reinforced for it. I'll see what happens with River.
 

emmanef

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone, I have been trying to teach this trick lately too, by shaping.
I clicked for interest in the towel, then for taking the towel in the mouth, then for shaking it and as they shake it, it will go over their heads so big party then. I have not been very diligent and I have not progressed to putting it on cue, but they do get excited when they see the towel. I will try and edit a few of my training videos and post them here.
 

Mutt

Experienced Member
We went back to the drawing table as Boef felt sabotaged by me (why are you making it impossible for me to get the towel on their?!).
So we tried something else and I just asked her to do something with the towel and it worked!
Here is our progress (second training session), I start with the towel on a box to prevent her from stepping on it (which makes it impossible to lift if she is holding it down with her paws):
 

sgtfrog

Active Member
Unrelated to throwing a blanket...

But I just watched that video of a border collie shaking a pillow.

I'd like to teach my dog to "shake" a toy that she picks up on command. How would I go about teaching her this if she doesnt offer this behavior naturally?

Its impossible for me to just "capture" this and click the behavior because She NEVER shakes toys on her own. She only shakes once in a while if were playing tug BUT rarely.

I've been trying to capture that head shake/tug while were playing but she rarely does it and I've literally been playing with her for a few days and I've clicked the behavior every time she does it but after doing this for a few days She hasn't picked up on it at all ... Sooo I'm stumped..

I've also tried with different toys ie: pillows , towels , toys , ropes of different sizes and shapes and things she never plays with to get her excited but shes not giving any new behaviors. Definitely no shaking.

any suggestions?
 

Mutt

Experienced Member
Well I guess you would approach it the same way as trowing the blanket only reward an other moved (at a more advanced state).
I just put a small towel in front of her and stimulated her to mouth it (with my other dog Mazzel I'm still at the stage that he picks it up, points his head a bit up and trows the towel down). When she got that I would only reward for bigger movements (step by step) and than for trowing it up, in your case shaking.
 

Linda A

Experienced Member
Unrelated to throwing a blanket...

But I just watched that video of a border collie shaking a pillow.

I'd like to teach my dog to "shake" a toy that she picks up on command. How would I go about teaching her this if she doesnt offer this behavior naturally?

Its impossible for me to just "capture" this and click the behavior because She NEVER shakes toys on her own. She only shakes once in a while if were playing tug BUT rarely.

I've been trying to capture that head shake/tug while were playing but she rarely does it and I've literally been playing with her for a few days and I've clicked the behavior every time she does it but after doing this for a few days She hasn't picked up on it at all ... Sooo I'm stumped..

I've also tried with different toys ie: pillows , towels , toys , ropes of different sizes and shapes and things she never plays with to get her excited but shes not giving any new behaviors. Definitely no shaking.

any suggestions?
I don't know the answer to this but I wish I did. This is something that came natural to Spice and was easy to capture. On the other hand, I have never seen Royal shake anything and no matter what I do I can not motivate him to do it. I would love for him to learn to shake something!
 

sgtfrog

Active Member
I think I figured out how to Teach milli to shake a toy! I couldnt find any other info online soo I just tried a few different things...

I took a small towel and put it on her neck. It's long enough for her to turn her head and try to take it off but its too hard to just pull it off so she needs to "shake" her head ( like the border collie in that video). Did a few sessions of this until she caught on to the command "shake" or "shake it" . Now I'm trying to get her to shake the towel when its on the floor. At first she had no idea but eventually she caught on When i would sometime put it on her back , sometimes on the floor to mix it up. Shes shaking the towel on command now BUT if i introduce a different toy she wont do it haha. I need to teach her to Shake other things on command now!

=)
 
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