The Trick or Treat Giveaway Hop is a sponsored by Lionel Trains, the Art of AJ, pawTree, Dr. Harvey’s, Jones Natural Chews, Puppy Style Treats, Clear Conscience Pet, Whimseez, Loving Pets and Weruva. All content and opinions expressed are my 100% my own.
We’re joining our hosts, Kol’s Notes and Beagles and Bargains to present the first every Trick or Treat Blog Hop! (You can check out all the goodies over at Kol’s Notes.)
So here’s the scoop. It started last week and continues through this week! Each day a different blogger will show you a trick and you get a chance to win a treat. Today’s treat is a chance to win a $25 gift code to shop at Clear Conscience Pets. At the end of the week, every person who entered the daily giveaways is entered to win one of three grand prizes!
Today’s trick….well, I thought it’d be really cool to teach Delilah to turn the kitchen light off. I was gonna go all Harry Potter and the command would be “Nox” which all you Potterheads know, is the spell to extinguish the light on the end of your wand. (Hey, it’s a handy spell trick to know.)
Both my dogs know “Touch” which is the command for them to touch their paw to my hand. I’ve worked Delilah in training classes and she did quite well both with touching my hand and also touching the wall. I thought, this is going to be easy.
Nailed it! NOT!!
Turns out, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. But I learned a few things I’d like to pass along.
Use the lowest value treat your dog will work for. If your dog will work for a pea, don’t use bacon. Save your higher value treats for recalls and special occasions.
Choose your training time wisely. In retrospect, in the morning before breakfast is NOT the time to bring out the bacon.
Always end on a positive note. If you’re getting frustrated or your dog just isn’t ‘getting it’, then stop the training. Ask your dog for an easy trick they already know, and end on a happy note.
Tire your dog out a bit before you start. You don’t want them tired to the point where they can’t focus, but trust me when I say this, if you’ve got a highly motivated treat dog, you’ll want them to be a wee bit tired.
If you’d like to see a dog ACTUALLY learn to switch the lights, you can check out this YouTube video, starring Lady.
And one last thing! Clear Conscience Pet is going to have a promo code for 20% off from now through December 31, 2015. Use this code BOO20.
Tomorrow’s trick is a surprise, but you’ll find it over on the Jones Natural Chews blog.
That’s AMAZING. …..not Sampson or Delilah, but Lady! WOW! Keep trying, S. Hold out for the bacon, D.
Love and licks,
Cupcake
Brilliant job guys! I am impressed! Keep using bacon!
Well, don’t feel bad, I’m not a trick dog either! We have learned a lot about rewards lately which has been one big reason Bailie nailed her title yesterday. Never be stingy, pay big and with high value treats, but not always. Random no treat or lower value mixed in with huge reward, and not even for big accomplishments keep us dogs in the game making it fun with the unknown. It’s working great for us right now. Nice work and wow, what a huge attempt for a trick. Mom would not even think to try that one!
Btw, I tried to enter and the Rafflecopter isn’t working – maybe that’s why there are no entries?
It’s working now Amy, thank you. Please enter. 🙂
Maybe next time she will get it. Neither of my dogs are tall enough for that trick.
We entered through a “Amie De” Facebook account. I belive in using a wide variety of treats! My favorite brand of treats is One Dog Organic’s line of treats and Zuke’s, as well as Plato pet treats.
My first impression is that your dogs must not have eaten for days, but then I remembered what breed they are. Loved your video.
Too funny. Bacon is very distracting for sure. Peas. Good idea. I never thought of that 🙂
Ducky does the “touch” trick with her nose rather than her paw; but isn’t tall enough to reach the switch even with her paw. I loved your video though – I loved watching Sampson and D-Dog just being “dogs being dogs”.
PS. Shadow might be able to do it – I’ll have to work with her on it while Ducky’s at daycare.
pieces of chicken!
He likes soft meaty treats and cheese.
Sorry that I had to chuckle quite a bit at your video! That’s what the two girls are like when I try to train them. Cricket is totally focused on the treat, and Sheba swats me with her paw if she doesn’t know what else to do.
That’s why you see all my trick training with Luke! We’re still working on the light switch thing now too….we are not there yet. I’ll have to watch the video you shared again later to see if we can get some tips from that.
Luke’s favorite training treat is freeze dried liver, and we mix that in with various other things that he also likes, but doesn’t love quite as much.
I don’t think my dog could learn to turn out the lights now matter how hard we train – unless I called in an electrician to add some low light switches! She is a Bichon & has such short legs.
It okay I’ve been trying to teach Nala to roll over for a while it still hasn’t worked out but I use Zukes training treats.
Oh my dawg you are going to learn to turn the light off!! Mom wants to teach me to vacuum
Lily & Edward
Mom wants to teach us to vacuum, BOL
Lily & Edward
We train with different treats and toys but cheese is a favorite for us!
We train with a variety of treats but anything beef or peanut butter flavored is always a hit!
I don’t give 2 rips whether your dog can turn off the lights (actually, I do; I’m glad they can’t. Because now I don’t have to be jealous since my corgis cannot reach the light switch, and you’re getting to lie in bed while I have to get up in the cold to turn the lights off myself). 😉 What’s most important are your training tips! Nothing worse than a frustrated human trying to train a tired/bored/frustrated dog. Also, that video ROCKS! I’m running to subscribe to your YouTube now!
Soft treats that can easily be broken into small pieces.
We use liver treats around here
I use peanut butter treats to train!
Our boy is limited on treats by his sensitive tummy, so we train most often with either his food or plain chicken.
Oh my gosh that video was great! I loved the music and how you put it together. Nice job on the trick. I have been using zukes mini’s for training Preacher.
That is adorable and one trick that Dex does not know – going to try
The treat we use is Pup-er-oni. Junk food for dogs I know but it’s the one he’ll do anything anytime for! Sometimes I put one in a ziplock bag with a handful of kibble to make the kibble smell like it and then I can use that 🙂
Are you SURE training Delilah how to turn the lights off and on is a good idea? I personally think it would be awesome because I am quite certain there would be some hilarious posts in the future once she learns how to do that…
I give them cooked pieces of chicken or beef.
We sometimes use small pieces of chicken as treats.
We like using beef flavored treats!
we train with cooked chicken, my dogs go crazy for it
Well it was a valiant effort! I don’t think I could teach Luna this, but it would be so useful. She is just too bouncy!
My dogs will take any treats!
Cheese works the best.
I train my dogs using chicken jerky or freeze dried duck pieces.
My dog really likes Coachies and chicken jerky treats.
LOL I imagine bacon would be a distraction for most dogs.