I’ve enjoyed teaching dogs to do tricks since I was a kid.  Usually it was the old stand bys of giving a paw, sitting up to beg, and a few other common tricks.  Our old male Bull Terrier, Malcolm did a marvelous dead dog.  I would point my finger at him, say, “bang” he’d drop, and roll onto his back with all four feet in the air.  These two haven’t learned that trick but they do have a couple of their own.

     Gavin was a horrible jumper when he was a pup.  He constantly jumped up at you as high as he could and nip at your clothing—I have a complete wardrobe of Gavin designed holey T-shirts.  That’s when I had a flash of brilliance (that only happens occasionally) and bought a Hula-Hoop.  I began to redirect his jumping up into jumping through the hoop.  He loves to do this now and all I have to ask him is, “want to go play hoops?”  He bounds for the door—that danged fool will do anything for a cookie except roll over on his back.  Thus, he doesn’t play dead.

     The standard poodle across the street learned to do hoops by watching him—she also has a severe cookie addiction.  When Patty arrived on the scene, she too learned by watching and, of course, her love of cookies.  Patty also does a great ‘stick ‘em up’ her paws go way up into the air for that.  Maybe I can add on “bang” dead dog.  Right now, I’m working on stick ‘em up followed by a down.