Need An Interesting 'new' Trick

[tigerlily46514]

so, you are trying to get Evie to shut the door with her nose, not her paw, is that it? and Evie is only touching it, or only moving it just a lil bit, instead making door shut, is that it?

IF that is it, mayyybe, try opening the door only 1/2 to 1 inch, or less, so that almost ANY touch by Evie = the door shuts.
Give prizes when the door shuts.

Then, after Evie has been shutting the door for only 1/2 inch open, then do 1 whole inch open, then slowly graduate to 2 inches open, and so on?? and slowly add one more inch to how open the door is? for Evie to shut it...

in short, maybe rewarding not the pushing,
but instead, reward the door shutting?? and THEN add in the pushing, after Evie has understood the door has to shut to get a prize. .........???

 

[running_dog]

Anyway, the bottom line to my rant is that Evie won't offer behaviours unless I ask for them.... ideas?

Have you tried "101 things to do with a box"
It is quite a useful way to teach your dog to understand the idea of offering behaviours.
You do have to be a little inventive and tailor the exercise to the dog. My dog always lies down when offering behaviours with an object. It is very frustrating as obviously he can't do anything active! In the end I gave him an object so large that he HAD to be on his feet and he's moved on a little.

The other thing I've noticed is that trainers try to build up some expectation reward by maybe rewarding something 6 times and then not the 7th. That way the dog maybe thinks that you blinked and missed it so tries again if you wait it out. I know this works with my dog and with my sister's puppy and kitten though they only have basic clicker training, now I just need to figure out how to reward the goldfish... I wonder... do I need to put the clicker underwater?

 

[tigerlily46514]

//It's just like with the door behaviour, we've been working on that for weeks and she still won't offer it to me a second time//

but did you get my point,(?) about starting at "shutting" the door---when it is only open 1/2 inch----------and enthusiastically and heavily rewarding THAT,
and THEN, building upon that, inch by inch, to get her to PUSH the door further?

instead of starting at PUSHING the door.
start at SHUTTING the door,
and make that moment the best moment of Evie's day, 'WOW, YOU SHUT THE DOOR! YAY, GOOD GIRL! GOOD GIRL! YESsssssss!" and so on. big party in her mouth.
Evie will only have to barely touch it to SHUT it, cuz it was only open about 1/2 inch. see?

then, overtime, have door open a whole inch.
then have door open two inches,
and so on.

my dog often needs ME to be enthusiastic about the trick, he seems to sort of "match" MY enthusiasm for many tricks. lol. Many dogs seem to find their humans being enthusiastic as interesting. worth a try, anyway, since what you ARE doing is not working...

 

[Evie]

but did you get my point,(?) about starting at "shutting" the door---when it is only open 1/2 inch----------and enthusiastically and heavily rewarding THAT,
and THEN, building upon that, inch by inch, to get her to PUSH the door further?

instead of starting at PUSHING the door.
start at SHUTTING the door,
and make that moment the best moment of Evie's day, 'WOW, YOU SHUT THE DOOR! YAY, GOOD GIRL! GOOD GIRL! YESsssssss!" and so on. big party in her mouth.
Evie will only have to barely touch it to SHUT it, cuz it was only open about 1/2 inch. see?

Yup, don't know why I didn't think of that myself to be honest

We shall try it!

On a completely different note. I started teaching Evie "where's your tongue". This is a video of her progress on day 3 of the training. On day one and two we used peanut butter on her nose to help her along a bit, but that wasn't necessary today Very happy with her progress. At one point in the video you can see she's still trying to figure out EXACTLY what the behaviour is that i'm clicking (you'll see her opening her mouth without sticking her tongue out - sorta asking "is it just my open mouth that you want?") I thought it was very cute and this is the first time i've seen her actually trying to figure something out for herself

Very proud

 

[Dogster]

Oh My Dog!!!!!! ADORABLE!!!!! She's doing GREAT!!!!! AWESOME JOB!!!!

 

[Anneke]

AAAAWWWW She is soooo cute!! Great trick!!