Leg lift trick

On wet days I find myself stuck in the house doing different tricks with the dogs.  Wicket is my advanced trick dog, since I have become better over the years at being able to teach shaping.  I tend to work on things that are a little more basic with my other dogs.  Okay, lets talk a little about the leg lift.  For years I have done balance work with my dogs & this takes it to the next level.  I don't know if this will work for you but thought I would share & you could come up with your own leg lift game.  After I taught Wicket to handstand I moved on to this trick on accident.  I set out the plunger & since he had done the back foot work recently for handstands, Wicket started offering a back foot to the plunger.  Of course the plunger fell over but I quickly rewarded seeing that this could be very useful.  I set the plunger again to see what would happen.  Wicket started lifting his leg to touch the plunger but knowing it would fall over didn't put pressure on it.  I did that several times then moved the plunger to the other side of his body which caused him to lift his other back leg.  I plan to phase out the plunger later.  This is Wicket's second session with the leg lift work.

Enjoy!

Leg lift video

Dog tricks

A few people have been interested in how I taught Wicket to do his handstand.  Here is my link that shows a short video on how to get started.  http://youtu.be/l3XwiENseyo
After you do the ground work test your dogs skills along a wall or door.  If the dog needs help start with your target object on the door.  Here is the end result.  http://youtu.be/_k03eNnw0-M

Happy dog training! -Heidi

learning...

The last couple of trials I have been doing some experamenting in the ring.  I wanted to push my team hard & see how we could handle things.  I found some interesting things.  When I let worry or stress creep in no matter the form I didn't run or handle my team very well.  When I focused on my team, running hard and didn't babysit we did some amazing things.  I was super happy with several runs.  A favorite run from each dog was the resent AKC standard run.  No, we did not "Q" but I walked away happy with how each dog did & how I ran.  Some may think it sad that we just barrly missed the Q but I like to think what fun we had & how much better we are going to do next time. :)

A Wicket video

The dogs and I went out for a show & go to practice.  Not bad for taking some time off from agility training.  I look forward to the USDAA trial coming up in a few weeks.  -H



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2SQUmxbJeA