Working on the Quality of the Trick
Working on the quality of the trick is an important part of taking your tricks to the next level. The qualities of distance, speed, and duration will help you polish your tricks and let you expand them to more elaborate performances. Distance pertains to how far away from your dog you can be and still have him perform the trick, speed refers to how fast he can execute it, and duration indicates how long he'll hold it.
The key is to work on improving one aspect of your dog's performance at a time. For instance, if you want to teach your dog to wave to you at a distance, you would not ask him to hold the wave (duration) for any longer than he normally offers it. Similarly, you would not work him at a distance if you were trying to work on the duration of the wave. Separating these variables of trick training will help your dog learn faster, more consistently, and more reliably.
The simple truth of training dogs is that you get what you pay attention to. Set your dog up to succeed, limit his options, and reinforce what's going right, and you'll soon have a well-behaved dog that everyone loves to have around.
Distance
To increase the amount of space between you and your dog, you simply need to lower your standards for all other aspects of the trick except his ability to perform the behavior (however sloppy) at gradually increasing distances. Start with the dog close to you and reinforce him for gradually increasing distances. You will know if you have gone too far because he will make mistakes. This means you should shorten the distance until he is able to perform reliably and continue more slowly.
Once you have your dog working reliably at one distance, go ahead and gradually increase it until you are satisfied with the performance. Don't be afraid to go back to the beginning if your dog falls apart and you lose the behavior entirely. If you go back to the beginning and start again, your dog will catch on more rapidly and give you an even better performance.
Speed of Execution
The speed with which your dog performs a trick refers to the time between the moment you give the command and the time the dog actually starts to perform the behavior. To improve your dog's speed, it is helpful to pick a number of seconds in which he has to perform the trick and only reward those repetitions that fall within your time limit. Anything more gets ignored. It takes most dogs only a short time to realize that it is how fast they perform the behavior that counts. Don't forget that if you are working on speed, you should lower your standards for other aspects of the trick.
What should you do if your dog refuses to perform a behavior you think he knows?
If your dog does not respond to a command you think he knows, show him again, using a food lure or hand motion to help. Repeat this half a dozen times and then try again. Dogs that don't respond to commands may be distracted in a new environment.
Duration
This aspect also refers to time, but it deals with the amount of time the dog must hold the behavior, such as leaving his paw up to wave, before you reward him. You can teach duration by delaying the click for varying amounts of time and only rewarding repetitions that are longer than average.
As you increase the duration, go slowly so as not to lose the behavior altogether. If you increase the duration too fast and the dog no longer performs the behavior, go back to the beginning and start again. You will find that if you are flexible you will make an enormous amount of progress in a relatively short period of time.
Applying these tools as you go about teaching your dog any trick you choose will make it fun and interesting for your dog to learn them. Concentrate on teaching the basics using these common methods before you start teaching tricks. Having lots of options will make it more fun for you to train your dog and more fun for him to learn what you want to teach him. If you follow the simple plan outlined in this chapter for establishing yourself as the leader and teaching the basic commands of Sit/Stay, Down/Stay, and Come, you will reap the rewards of having a well-behaved member of your family.
