Two weeks ago on December 5th, I started teaching Petunia to pick up her toys and put them in her toy box. Not only is she able to pick them up and put them away, she is able to pick them up individually by name, YAY!!! I'm a proud mama AND a grateful one since now I don't have to pick up her toys any more!
In this video, Petunia is gathering 14 toys (she's able to gather 20, but her toy box is only so big!).
Since people have been asking, I thought I'd give some background to my training her to pick up her toys:
Patience definitely is the KEY with this trick. I worked only 5 minutes at a time the first couple of days to keep frustrations down for each of us. Then play-play-play!!!
By the 5th day, she was putting it together, and I doubled our sessions to 10 minutes. Once she caught on, her herding DNA really kicked in and looked to me for the next objective as though for direction for herding. Very cool to watch!!
Because Petunia has grown up learning the names of her toys, it was simply a matter of shaping her with retrieving each and dropping them all into a pile. Once she was able to consistently pile them, I added a milk crate (toy box) to the equation. I put the crate in the same spot as her pile and within a couple days, she was putting them in like a champ!
I don't use a clicker, but high praise and soft treats during the session and a fun play session afterwards. The most difficult toys to put in the toybox are the long slinky animal types, but she's learning to lift her head higher to get the whole thing in. Smart gal!
To date, Petunia's vocabulary is approximately 130 words, comprised of toys, verbal commands, hand signals, people's names, miscellaneous words. I'm astounded at her capacity to soak in information and process it. I'm ever exploring new games for us to play together and things she can learn. The mental stimulation with her various vocabulary games seems to tire her out almost as much as a good romp outside. Aussies love a job, whether it's engaging their minds or their bodies or both! A tired dog is a happy dog!
Thanks for watching! :)
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3 окт 2024
