What do you mean? My paw-crossing is nothing short of miraculous!
Mum’s been working with me on our next trick as we hope to get to Expert Level. But these tricks are completely new to me and not a natural thing for us pooches. This week I learnt to cross my paws.
And I sure ate a whole lot of biltongs and super food treats!
May’s comment: We need five points to gain Expert Level. Having done Weave poles and Footsies with walk, we needed three more tricks. Looking through the list of tricks at Expert Level, there are some that Darcy will never be able to do. It’s not her personality to do certain tricks. And some things I wouldn’t want her to do. We identified a few fun ones we thought would be cool to learn. One was crossing her paws. It is not a natural move. It took us at a few sessions over the course of two weeks before she understood what I wanted her to do.
There are videos that breaks down the teaching. I thought I could short-cut the process but it didn’t work.
So we began at the very beginning.
And then it looked like she will never get past this cross and touch.
This week, I moved to using my feet for her to touch. Wonder if I could have started from here.
Two days ago, she finally did a few tentative crosses on her own without my feet. And then yesterday she finally did it! Hooray!
Took us two weeks – to get this done. We did a short session every other day and stopped whenever she was bored or when we finished our treat ration.
Now we need two more points to become an Expert Trick Dog! What nest?
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2 Responses
You both are marvelous! Such patience on both your parts! I didn’t realize crossing paws is not a natural activity for dogs.
Where is George during all this training? He’s missing out on treats!
Can’t wait to see what your next two tricks will be! I am sure Darcy will be an Expert Trick Dog in no time flat!