Hooligan is learning to read!
If you haven't yet done so, click on Day 15.
This is a classic exercise where you teach a dog an alternative signal for an action he already knows, in the same way you would teach hand signals... in this case 'reading' the command Sit! off a sign.
Combining the usual command with the flash card, soon the dog learns 'Oh, when she flashes this thing, it means 'bum-on-floor', just like my usual command.' Now stop giving the usual command, and just use the flash card - pretty soon you have a dog who can 'read' the sit command.
Take it a step further - teach a second command, one that looks very different when written on the sign, say Down! - and write it in another color, or make the cardboard a different shape.
Once Hooligan was consistently sitting when the 'Sit' card appeared and then consistently doing a down for the 'Down' card, I started to use both in the same session.
Obviously she is just pattern matching... the cards look very different, so it's easy to connect one with Sit! and the other with Down!.
Nonetheless, a dog who can 'read' makes for a pretty cool parlor trick.
I love the Spass-Mit-Hund folks.
(The Belltie, my bear of very little brain, is still trying to eat the cardboard sign.
)
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