Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars Competition

I'm a little late in posting this, but Honey is having a dancing with the doggie stars competition where we all make up a one minute freestyle routine and I think I'm going to give it a try. The deadline is June 15th so you still have time to join if you want! It's going to be a lot of fun. It's all amateur because only dogs who have never made a freestyle routine can compete. :) Click the banner above to see more details.

I've decided on my music and theme (I can't dance so we're going for a themed freestyle). I have to build some props and work on choreography. Those are going to be the hardest and most time consuming for me. I'm also teaching him a couple of new tricks that will go great with our theme. :) I have to keep reminding myself to keep my goals small and easy to accomplish. It's very easy to get caught up in it all and try to move too fast. Our first session was today and he did fantastic!

I can't tell you what we worked on because it's going to be a surprise, but I did also work on his April trick, closing a door (our first session, I'm such a procrastinator!) and he did great. I had previously worked on having him target his nose to a piece of paper so I started out reviewing that. Then I taped the piece of paper to the door. At first I opened the door, but then realized I was moving too fast so I closed it. He didn't want to target the paper on the door because he was watching my hand (which made me realize he was targeting my hand and not the paper at all), so I taped the paper to my knee. I put my knee directly in front of him and he immediately started targeting it. So after a few times of doing that I moved the piece of paper to the door. He was trying to do his shy trick (his new favorite apparently) so I finally turned my back and ignored him (my way of forcing him to use his brain instead of randomly cycling tricks). Eventually he touched it and I clicked. After that it was easy! Good boy!

Next I'll work on him pushing the door harder and eventually I'll open the door. :) So anyway wish us luck. Next month I'm going to work on his tricks for the freestyle routine so unfortunately we won't have a poll! Sorry! It will be worth it though. :) Let me know if you decide to join. It's going to be a lot of fun!