Trick or Treat Hop

Once again we are participating in the Trick or Treat Giveaway Hop. (Official rules are in the widget footer!)

Stuff I have to tell you…The Trick or Treat Giveaway Hop is sponsored by CleverPet, The Honest Kitchen, Planet Dog, and Health Extension. The opinions and ideas in this post are my own and are uninfluenced by any other person or business. The individual sponsors are responsible for their giveaway prizes including shipping.

You guys might remember that we had high expectations last year to try and teach Delilah how to turn on a light. Yes, you can check out that video here,

no, we never finished learning it.

This year, I just can’t seem to get my blogging life together, and I once again had high expectations to teach a really cool trick. Turns out my expectations far exceed my time and abilities, so that really cool trick will once again wait. Who knows, maybe I’ll start trying to train that trick right now, instead of waiting until a week before the post is due. Then I can wow you with it next year. 🙂

So because I really suck at trick training, I’m going to show you how to teach your dog to stand up on two legs.

Obviously, I am referring to the two back legs, and since Sampson has no strength in those, our demonstrator dog will be Delilah. Also, this should be fairly easy because Delilah ALWAYS dances backwards on her two back legs when I am giving her her dinner.

Some of you might be wondering (like Hubby is) why you’d want to teach your dog to stand on their back legs, especially if you have a dog like Delilah, who already stands up and peers into the sink, and takes food off the stove. Truthfully, I think this trick is best suited for smaller dogs, but if you want to do freestyle dance with your dog, it’s not a bad trick to learn.

The key is to know your dog, and know their strengths. Delilah’s back legs are very strong, and she’s only up on them a few minutes, so I feel comfortable teaching this to her. Besides, who am I kidding? We both know damn well that I won’t keep up with training this. Hey, at least I’m honest. 🙂

Now, Delilah is both a joy and a curse to work with. She’s a Labrador, so she is highly motivated by treats, which means she will do her best to learn what you are asking. BUT her desire for food, can often times become a distractor, because she can’t always focus on what you want, because she is too focused on the treat.

Pay attention here, because I’m going to tell you something REALLY important.

Ready?

Here goes…

The key to teaching a trick to your dog, is to find the lowest food value your dog will work for. Click To Tweet

Delilah WILL work for a banana chip, which is probably her most favorite treat on earth, but the fact I have a banana chip in my hand, causes her to lose her mind and she can’t focus on what I want her to do. She will also work for a green bean, or a chick pea which has far less value to her, therefore her focus will be more on the task at hand, rather than on the treat.

Make sense?

Good!

Then let’s see how we do it.

Step one – find the lowest value treat your dog will work for.

Step two – sit your dog in front of you.

Sit Ubu, sit. Good dog.

Step three – take your treat, show it to your dog and slowly bring the treat up just above your dog’s head.

Heads Up, Not 7-Up

Step four- slowly begin raising the treat. As your dog begins raising themselves encourage and continue raising the treat.

Dancing Bear

Step five- when your dog has gotten as high as you want them to, praise them and give them the treat.

All the way up! Good girl!

When we put it all together, it looks something like this.

And just because you’ve hung in here, this is Delilah jumping backwards as I bring her her dinner. As you can see, she’s so excited, she can’t take her eyes off the bowl.

I’d like to thank all the Sponsors, and all the bloggers who participated in this blog hop, and especially Jodi Chick from Kol’s Notes and Jessica Shipman from Beagles & Bargains. Without all of them, none of this would be possible.

All of the participating blogs have an individual widget, so not only can you learn tricks from each of these blogs, you can also enter to win at every one of them. That’s pretty awesome too!

Additionally, please make sure you are following us all on the Instagram, as there will be a special Social Media prize where you can win a $100 gift card to PetSmart.

Now go, go learn tricks, enter to win and seriously, have fun with your pets!