a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Tricks for Balance and Body Awareness--Part 1

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Tricks for Balance and Body Awareness--Part 1

SUMMARY: Limp and handstand.
Boost is SO CLOSE to doing a handstand! She's lifting her back feet in the air to place them on something above & behind her but hasn't yet made the transition to just keeping them in the air without looking for the support. Around Christmas I vowed 2 weeks, but then I haven't practiced every day like I planned--more like once a week.

Tika is SO CLOSE to limping while holding up her back foot. She lifts it pretty high if there's something near her back foot but loses it as soon as there's nothing nearby. She doesn't even have to put her foot on it any more, but there's something about that prop behind her.

I taught Remington to limp with his front paw up--that was pretty easy, actually, once I thought about it, because he could already "shake" while standing up. But back foot up? Triiiiikeeeee!

Both of these ideas came out of the Silvia Trkman seminar of tricks for building strength, balance, and body awareness for agility. If I remember to work on them every day for 5 minutes, we could be there very soon. Maybe I'll post videos if I'm not too lazy to get it out, set it up, take the vid, connect it to the computer, remember how to use the software, upload the vid, edit it to what I want, save it, remember how to include it in my blog...

You can see why I don't do videos very often.

What tricks are YOU working on?

5 comments:

  1. Ha! We're just trying to get her to shake with her left paw...by saying PAW! So far she doesn't get it. Also working on "TOUCH!" trying to get her to touch a target with her nose. So far she's scooting over and lying down on the target. Silly girl.

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  2. OK, are you teasing me? Like, that's not the way to train either of those things--

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  3. Nice! Those are two tricks I haven't even dared try to teach. I'm feeling inspired now though... That front-paw limp sounds cool too (and easier, woo hoo).

    Today I wandered around the house looking for potential props that could potentially be used in future for a 52 Weeks photo, some kind of trick interacting with the prop. Came up with one idea but it's pretty lame! Oh to be more creative.

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  4. Nightowl: You're the training self-video queen! Coming to CA anytime soon to do that for us?

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