Comment by vintagedave
Comment by vintagedave 11 hours ago
How did you teach a dog to clean up their toys? I've never seen a dog trained beyond normal sit, lie down, heel sort of thing.
Comment by vintagedave 11 hours ago
How did you teach a dog to clean up their toys? I've never seen a dog trained beyond normal sit, lie down, heel sort of thing.
They can learn a lot but it's hard work. Also, "intelligence" and "obeying commands" are very orthogonal in dogs. In fact, sometimes a very intelligent dog is very difficult to train.
Our 75/25 Australian Shepherd/Poodle mix we like to call "loophole puppy" since she has the Aussie "lawful good" traits, mixed in with a mind that makes everything a game of how she can adhere to the letter of the law and still get what she wants.
One example that comes to mind is planting new grass seed on the lawn, and she was not allowed in the grass. She pretty much instantly figured out the new rule, but would constantly test it. Drop her ball a foot into the grass, then lay down on the sidewalk and crawl into the grass keeping her hind legs on the pavement. Still on the sidewalk!
It's a constant battle of wits trying to keep her from figuring out new "loopholes" or grey areas we don't anticipate. Also finding her "jobs" to do so she doesn't make stuff up on her own.
I've done this. The goal is to first demonstrate and reward them, so they associate good feelings with the whole thing. Step two is to kind of put the toy in their mouth, drag them over to where you wanna place it, then make them release it, and if everything worked, you reward them. Do this a couple of times, associate with some command like "clean up" and after a while they'll understand that if they do that they get an reward. After a while the reward can be switched from candies to head-pats, cuddles or whatever, and they should still be able to do it.
You can apply this to pretty much anything and if they're somewhat clever they can do it. Age doesn't seem to matter either, I've done this with 10 year old dogs too.