Jackal is AMAZING!!

Picture taken 4-25-2011.

I love my dog! He never fails to amaze me with his intelligence and desire to learn. I was reading Mango's blog about their most recent dance practice and decided I really need to buckle down and work on my freestyle routine for Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars contest if I want it to be any good. I started working on one of our tricks (old trick, new cue), but he was way too excited so I spent some time doing some active tricks like jumping all four off the floor, spinning, leg weaving, figure eights and jumping over my leg to burn off some energy and excitement. I don't think I've ever seen him spin so fast lol!

Once he was a little calmer I started working on his trick again and he picked it up quickly. Then we worked on last month's trick fetching his leash to make sure he still remembers it (especially considering I still have to get a video!!) and he did fantastic. He's bringing it to my hand really well now even though he sometimes still drops it. He was so excited that when I put up his leash he tried to fetch my Ethernet cord LOL!

Next we worked on our brand new trick. We've made it through the beginning stages and he loves it. I think every new trick he learns becomes his favorite lol. He does it all the time now without a cue, but I have to ignore it because he needs to do it only when I ask. It's really hard though because he's so cute.

The trick involves both paws and I initially taught it with him facing me. The end product will have him in heel position however so I decided to work on that today. He was very slowly catching on in heel position, but I quickly realized his confusion stemmed from the fact that I couldn't cue him without a voice cue. The trick involves him using his paws separately so I have to teach a voice cue for each paw. I sat down in front of him and asked him to do the trick with only his right paw while I used the voice cue. We did it about ten times and then worked on his left paw. When he seemed to understand I stopped using any physical cue at all and asked him with a voice cue to alternate between his left and right paws. He did fantastic. And just to test to see if he was just doing it himself I asked for his right paw twice in a row and he did it!! I'm so excited and proud of him because normally he ignores vocal cues but he totally had it on this. Sorry I can't tell you what the behavior is, but suffice it to say he's AMAZING!

Edited to add: I forgot to mention I found Jackal an outfit for his freestyle routine last weekend. It's a bit small on him, but it works. :) Now I just need the rain to stop so we can practice outdoors and I can build props.