Sunday, August 8, 2010

Training Aids



One of my favorite training aids to teach a dog to go out and work away from me is the staples Easy button. Touch it and it says "That was Easy". Once they learn how to make the button talk they are crazy about it. I used it to teach Whisper to go in a straight line in agility. She used to take a jump and look back at me for direction. In agility they may have to jump in a straight line for 2-3 jumps so curling back to me was a disadvantage. Once she learned the button talks and and she would get treats for making it talk she became motivated to work ahead of me.



In the last video Echo is also learning how to make it talk to get rewards.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Super cute!

jet said...

approximately how big is that button? just wondering what size target it is. I like the idea and because I have a warped sense of humour was thinking about doing it with a different kind of button...(like the 'bull**** button' I just found on teh internets)

whygreyhounds said...

I like that! Similar to targeting exercises but the voice makes it fun!

Shall have to find one of these in Australia!! Great idea for agility work.

Aragon greyhounds said...

Hi Jet
The button is about 4 inches in diameter. Once the dogs figure out how to make it talk they love playing with it. Lyric likes to take it in her mouth and make it talk.
Also comes in different languages. I ran across one in Spanish several months ago.

Greyhounds CAN Sit said...

Do your guys ever pick it up and chew on it? I used something similar with Beryl (a touch light without batteries!) and she soon learned to touch it then she decided the next step was to pick it up and munch on it!! I haven't worked out how to stop that so we've left it for a while:-)

jet said...

cool! I will have to look for something similar ;)

houndstooth said...

Ha ha ha! I have one of those buttons, but I'd never thought about using it with the dogs! I'll have to try it now.

Never Say Never Greyhounds said...

Ha! How funny!

Anonymous said...

Rats, I had a button at work and threw it out. Guess I better make a trip to Staples and get another one. :)

Donna

Sandy ~~~ said...

I've got ONE! Creel was trying to learn to nose it but that takes a little more umph. We'll work on the paw slam instead!