Monday, 2 April 2012

You can train hounds.

I remember always reading that breeds from the Hound group were stubborn and hard to train. Obviously, Coco is a huge mix of breeds, but I am confident that she is mainly Hound, based on her looks anyway!


I was a little dubious about training her tricks, I wanted to try but I am quite impatient, but after the success of teaching her 'Paw' I had a go at 'Touch'.

I made a target out of some card, and made it memorable and noticable, so she could see it easily and recognise it. It is bright orange, with black and pink target pattern and a couple of do pictures, just so it was differant to anything she has seen before.

I held out the target, and tapped it and pointed at it until she sniffed it, then gave her a treat. I kept doing this over and over again and she quickly picked up that when she hit the target with her nose, she got a treat! I placed the target on the floor in differant places and made her sit, then touch. She hit the target about 8 times out of 10 so she has been doing brilliantly.

I eventually hope to teach her to shut the door by sticking the target to the door and asking her to touch, and push the door shut.

She is so smart, and picks things up very quickly (as long as there are treats involved!)



We will hopefully be going to dog training classes soon, to do the Kennel Club Good Citizen scheme, where you can achieve certificates, once you have taught your dogs commands like 'Stay' and walking to heel. I'd love to take her to agility classes one day, she'd be amazing, she is great at jumping and is so fast!