Adventures in dog training
The dog is generally a very smart dog and wants to please us. So in addition to attempting to teach the dog actual useful commands -- like, I am currently working on getting her to wait for me while going down the stairs and not just barrel ahead of me -- we thought it would be nice to teach her some basic tricks. Like, say, "shake hands."
This has failed spectacularly.
It's not that she hasn't learned how to do "shake hands" on command. She definitely has. She will happily hold her paw out whenever you say it. The problem is that what I think she has learned is not "perform this behavior in response to a command" but "wow, humans really like this behavior." So she'll just be sitting there or standing there and no one's asked her to do anything but she'll be sitting -- or even standing -- and picking one paw up, because clearly this is what humans like! She's going to do this! Like, I go to take her leash off and she's standing there doing "shake hands." Aren't I pleased? Isn't this what I wanted?
Anyway. Yeah. Dogs, huh?
(Also she loves snow. Except for the part where the neighbors made a snowman which she thought was A Threat that needed to be barked at. Then when she got close enough to see that it wasn't a threat, she tried to eat it. Threats: EAT THEM.)
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This has failed spectacularly.
It's not that she hasn't learned how to do "shake hands" on command. She definitely has. She will happily hold her paw out whenever you say it. The problem is that what I think she has learned is not "perform this behavior in response to a command" but "wow, humans really like this behavior." So she'll just be sitting there or standing there and no one's asked her to do anything but she'll be sitting -- or even standing -- and picking one paw up, because clearly this is what humans like! She's going to do this! Like, I go to take her leash off and she's standing there doing "shake hands." Aren't I pleased? Isn't this what I wanted?
Anyway. Yeah. Dogs, huh?
(Also she loves snow. Except for the part where the neighbors made a snowman which she thought was A Threat that needed to be barked at. Then when she got close enough to see that it wasn't a threat, she tried to eat it. Threats: EAT THEM.)
Read this entry on Dreamwidth ||
comments