All of your pets know some pretty impressive tricks!
It's inspiring me to teach Harley more tricks.
Harley knows some of the basics, like sit, stay and off.
Stay:
This is how I taught Harley to stay-
1. Get your dog to sit
2. While facing your dog, walk a few centimeters away from him , with a treat in your hand and keep saying "staaay" "staaaay".
3. If your dog gets up, get him to sit again, and walk away from him while saying your phrase (don't make the final distance between you too big).
4. When he stays sitting and you've reached your distance, wait a few seconds (and say "stay") and if your dog stays still for the amount of time (don't make it too long at first), call your dog over and praise him, and give him his treat.
5. If he comes over to you before you say "come", make him go back to the start and sit, and repeat the steps. You may have to decrease your distance or time you make your dog wait if he continues to come over to you before you ask him to.
6. You repeat the steps but make the distance between you and your dog larger each training session (and increase the amount of time you get your dog to wait, and gradually don't use treats anymore).
Anyway, that's how I taught it but I'm sure there are other ways. However, it's been quite effective because we can leave the front door open while someone goes outside, and his natural tendancy is to go outside and wander around, but if we say stay he'll just wait inside at the front door.
Gentle:
To teach Harley gentle, every time he tried to snatch the treat out of my hand, I would take it away (don't do this if you have an aggressive dog), and I'd say "No" (In my normal tone but a bit more stern, you might have to use a deeper voice), and then I would slowly give him the treat and say "gentle, Harley" and then he would slowly take the treat from my hand, then I would say "Good boy!!". Keep doing this until you just have to say gentle before you give your dog the treat and they should get the idea.
Harley is really funny sometimes when I tell him to be gentle!
He takes the treat from my hand sooo slowly and carefully and he tries to be careful that his teeth don't touch my hand!
The only basic command Abby knows is sit!
It took me quite a while to teach her (she only learnt it properly last year, and she's nearly 5 haha). Before that she would only half-sit, so her bum wasn't even touching the ground.
I'm not sure how I taught Abby to get off my lap, she just 'knows' what the phrase is. I guess if your dog is on your lap, pick them up and put them on the floor and while you're doing this say "off" (or another phrase) and praise them when they're off. If you do this each time you can then just say the phrase and they'll get off your lap.
