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March 6, 2011

Adventures with Puppy, Bella

We’re having lots of fun with Bella. She’s behaving better with me now. Most days I sit in my chair working away while she creeps into my husband’s chair and has a snooze. I think she’s decided the chair belongs to her since Mr. Munro has to forcefully evict her most nights.

We’ve attended four puppy school classes and are halfway through the course. She’s usually very well behaved in class and learns quickly. At the last class we talked about tricks. We hadn’t tried teaching Bella any tricks and decided we’d attempt something basic first — a high five. She caught on really quickly and I had her high-fiving like a champ. When Mr. Munro arrived home from work we proudly demonstrated.

Here’s the process if you’d like to teach your dog to high five.

1. Hold a small treat on your right palm with your thumb covering it.
2. Hold another treat in your left hand out of sight of your dog. (I hide my left hand behind my back)
3. Get your dog to sit.
4. Hold out your right hand and say “High Five”. Your dog will sniff at first then automatically start to paw at your hand.
5. As soon as your dog slaps your hand with their paw give them the treat in your left hand and praise them.
6. Repeat process several times.

Bella

Since Bella is very good at coming when we call her name, we’ve started letting her off the lead in safe areas. Mostly she’s very good at returning, although tonight we met another dog without warning. The dog was three times Bella’s size but that didn’t deter her in the slightest. She wanted to play!

Can your dog do any tricks?

14 Comments

  1. Nikki-ann

    We haven’t got a dog any more, but our old dog had a tendancy to do whatever she wanted too… but she was well behaved so that didn’t matter so much. She wouldn’t walk/run unless you had her on a lead or were in a field.

  2. Kaye Manro

    Bella is so cute, and now becoming well behaved. That’s great. I don’t have a dog, only cats. Tricks don’t seem to be important to them!

    My parents had an Irish Setter named Ginger. I remember that dog so well. Mostly because she would often jump the high fence and chase after cars. Nothing stopped her. Once when I was visiting she followed me in my car all the way to my bank. I finally coaxed her inside and took her back to my parents house. She did finally settle down as she got older though.

  3. Savannah Chase

    She is adorable and I am glad things are going so well with her. When they are young they are so full of energy and want to do so much. LOL about the chair…Mine use to have a spot on the couch that was his…

  4. Maria D.

    That Bella is such a cutie pie!

  5. Shelley Munro

    LOL – Bella might look cute but she has a very naughty streak in her. Last night Mr. Munro and Bella had a very serious discussion about digging holes in the garden. There was much shouting and running.

  6. Marie

    Aww, Bella is so cute! And that’s impressive that she is learning so much so fast — she’s obviously very smart!

    Our dog knows some basic things like sit and lay but she doesn’t know much beyond that. We adopted her as an adult from a rescue and she has some “issues” but she’s a sweet dog nevertheless!

  7. john

    hi

  8. Debby

    I loved reading about the chair. My cat loves my husband’s chair and she will actually whine if he is sitting in the chair and she wants it.

  9. Maria Zannini

    My dogs will do anything if there’s a cookie involved.

    Well, almost anything. I haven’t found a way for them to balance my checkbook yet. :)

  10. Mary Kirkland

    Glad to hear the training is going so well. I wish more dog parents would train their animals, there’s nothing worst than dreading going over to someone’s house because they ahve an out of control dog that jumps all over you and won’t leave you alone. lol

    She’s so cute!

  11. electropompa submersibila

    She is so cute doing the high-five. I’ll teach my dog to do the high-five, too. It seems really easy. Thanks for sharing the trick.

  12. Heather

    Clever little pup, eh?

  13. Shelley Munro

    Maria – food is a big motivator in Bella’s world too!

  14. Shelley Munro

    Mary – you’re right about out of control animals. It makes visiting very unpleasant.