What's the thing that you never bothered training? Firstly, sorry to all those that do gundog training, this will make you cringe I never bothered to train Ella to give me the ball when we're playing fetch. If I ever take a ball to the park, I take two. I throw the first one, she picks it up and runs back and when she gets back to me, I throw the second ball. Oops
I'm the same with balls with W&S. They don't deliver them to hand. Every now and again, I think I should work on it (I did ten minutes of clicker training just the other day), but to be honest it doesn't really bother me, as long as dummies come to me. Luna delivers everything to hand
Oh, but if I didn't throw the second ball Ella wouldn't drop the first one! She'd run happy laps around me with her prize possession
I'm with @Boogie on "paw". I just never taught any of my dogs to shake. I'm going to have to with the next one, though, as the sight of so many disappointed little kids' faces when the big assistance dog couldn't shake was a killer. As was the look on Brogan's face that said, "Whadda they want? Why won't they just give me their gelato cone and quit staring at my foot!!!" None of my dogs could catch food/treats thrown at them either. People think that's a natural thing that doesn't need teaching, but it does. I always just thought it was undignified. I wouldn't want someone throwing a chip at my head and expecting me to catch it. Of course, it was also undignified when someone (invariably without asking me first) would toss a treat for Duncan or Brogan and it would bounce off their heads and land on the ground. And as they weren't allowed to take food from the ground, they'd just mournfully sit and stare at the "lost" treat. Poor abused puppies!
My OH was mortified when he realised that Ella couldn't catch. It's the one (and only) thing he trained and he is still so proud of it!
We naively taught Belle "paw" all those years ago. Coco has copied her without being taught . Luckily he is not so troublesome with it, and will offer lots of other behavious rather than "paw" most of the time.
If I threw a second ball for Willow without her dropping the first, she'd end up with two balls in her mouth
It would be shorter for me to list the things I did bother to train.. Poor Stanners is the forum terror
I've never taught give a paw either as years ago my parents had a Westie who constantly pawed at people and I wanted to avoid that. I am slightly tempted to do it as I've been reading a dog tricks book which explains how you can teach it with each paw in turn and then turn it into a sort of prancing walk.
I used to really dislike the idea of dogs being taught tricks and didn't do it with previous dogs ( other than playing fetch, which is a trick of sorts I guess). I'm not quite sure why I started with Molly ( just trying to keep her entertained I expect - she still seems to need some evening activity, even with 2 walks a day) but she so enjoys it and nudges me to get me started.
I remember reading about not teaching the paw when I was first on the forum, and I'm glad I didn't. Shadow went through a phase of pawing at me when he wanted something, but, as he wasn't ever reinforced for it, he gave up pretty quickly. He's the sort of dog who will throw behaviours at me when he wants something, to see what works, so I know if I had taught it, it would be in his repertoire. I don't think it would have been quite so disastrous with th girls, though; they're both less demanding when it comes to trying to attract my attention.
I didn't bother to teach 'shake', really wish I had as it would save me a heck of a lot of cleaning mud off the walls and woodwork x
No Shake a Paw for us either. I think it can have value as an alternate to jumping up when meeting new people. But I've met so many dogs who had it reinforced when they offered the paw and the person did not respond so then the dog pawed and pawed.
Aw I love 'paw' It's something my children taught Hattie & Charlie. Hattie automatically offers her paw to the lovely lady in the office at the Hospice who gives her some treats after Hattie has done her rounds. I think Hattie has excellent manners
Have never taught 'give me your paw' which I did teach the German Pointers! Nor a 'down' though they can do it, but I can't see the point; I was scared of teaching my first Lab as he had broken his elbow, screwed and pinned and so haven't taught the second Lab.
