Buddy Clicker Training Session 4 - Video!

I did some clicker training with Buddy after work today and he did great!  I started off reviewing sit and down.  He knows them so well!  He just needs to learn the vocal cues.  Buddy is the smartest, most enthusiastic puppy I have ever worked with.  When working on down I like to toss the treat a short distance because it gets them out of the down so you can ask for it again.  He runs after the treat, hits it with his paws like a cat sending it skittering across the room, chases it down, eats it and then runs back to me at full speed and slides into a down next to me (literally like a baseball player sliding to home plate).  My mom got a short video.  It's poor quality because it's in bad lighting and off a cell phone, but you can see what he was doing.

Direct Link for Video

After that I worked on "go to bed" to have him go into his crate when asked.  He was confused at first because he was trying to follow my hands around the back of it, so I started reaching inside of the crate to drop the treat.  He followed my hand in and I would click and he'd find the treat.  Within less than a minute I was sitting a couple of feet from the crate and tossing the treats inside it.  One time he didn't see me put the treat in there so I just sat still and waited.  He lay in front of me looking at me and then jumped up and ran into the crate.  I love watching puppies learning how to problem solve and think!!

After that I was talking to my family about what to teach next and "shake" or "sit up/beg" were popular choices.  I tried out both to see which one he would catch on to quicker and I think I'm going to do sit up.  He's at the mouthy stage and grabbing his paw is too tempting to nip at my hands.  He sat up once, but then I could tell his attention span was gone so I ended the session.  He is so smart and enthusiastic it's hard not to get carried away.

I think from here on out I'm going to do weekly posts with his sessions because as the sessions get more frequent I don't want to fill up everyone's feeds with posts too often.  I know some people aren't interested in dog training and will probably skip over these, which is fine.  I'm mainly keeping this as a record for myself.  At this rate he's going to learn tricks so fast I won't be able to remember them all!