Having a hard time training?Or just want to know new tricks?

[True Lies]

Is it possible to train my hamster? If yes, how should I train him?

[kiowa.]

Yes, it is possible to train hamsters. You should train him to do agility(: newbear (I think its Newbear51, but I cant remember) has a video of her hamster doing agility.

[True Lies]

I'll try that. My hamster's really hyper so prehaps it'll help.

[AppaloosaCake]

Is it possible to train my hamster? If yes, how should I train him?

I'm so sorry, i havnt been on to answer questions! ):

Yes, it is possible to train hamsters. You should train him to do agility(: newbear (I think its Newbear51, but I cant remember) has a video of her hamster doing agility.

Thanks love<3 :)

I have taught my little Chihuahua Pomeranian mix some basic things. Although, she still doesn't quite get them sometimes. She is still learning.

Kylee
Sit
Shake
Lie Down
Jump (She jumps threw a hoop)
Crawl

My other Chihuahua, Kaiah, on the other hand....

Kaiah
Sit
Jump (Jumps threw a hoop. But she only does it when she feels like it, even if I have treats. So I think I may use her favorite toy, a small chewed up stuffed raccoon, she doesn't let anyone touch it. xD)

My lab, Karley, she is getting better.

Karley
Sit
Lie Down
Drop It

Any suggestions on what I should teach Kylee next?

Very helpful! There is one lady on youtube and she has very cool tricks to teach anyone's dog! Her name is kikopup! :D

Really? I'll chack it out, than you :)

I watch her all the time! She is always my inspiration when I teach my dogs. xD

Well, i like to be creative and think ouside the box... Maybe have them do the tricks together, and turn it into a rutine? :3

[shadow.wolfdog]

WhiteWolf60, it is very possible to train a hamster! I'm not sure how, because it's been a while since I had hamsters, but I have rats that are trained with treats and positive reinforcement, kind of like dogs, so I'm sure that's how you would train a hamster. Rodents are generally very intelligent.

And can anyone help me out here? I have a new rough collie puppy who is eight weeks old, and I've been trying to work with her training. I've taught her to sit and lie down with vocal and hand signals, yet she has not yet learned her name or how to walk on a leash. She also is not doing well with housebreaking and I'm trying to train her to not bite so much and to stop barking. I know that collies are a vocal breed but they can be trained not to bark, and I know that puppies chew but they can also be broken from this. Is she just too young and full of energy? Should I keep trying to train her or should I wait until she settles down?

[Bethicus]

@tuesday
Hey :3 Firstly, don't be too worried. The fact that she's learned these basics is good, as it shows she responds well to you. housebreaking can take a long time, I mean we got our dog when he was 8 months and he wasn't fully house trained yet >.< secondly, don't ever 'wait until she settles down' to train her. you could end up with a 3 year old, untrained, hyper, aggressive, peeing, running away dog XD
so, lets start with the name thing!! calling their name is basically teaching them a command to come to their name right? ro, if you managed to teach her to sit, you should teach her to come to her name pretty easily! basically, when she's not paying attention, call her name enthusiastically and tap your legs. keep it up until she comes to you when she does, give her a treat and praise a lot. repeat until she comes whenever her name is called
if, however, she is a sort of quiet/shy/timid dog, then maybe the calling/shouting doesn't work. try calling her name quietly with your hand stretched out and food. when she comes to her name, gently praise and reward :3 it's practically the same, just slightly adapted for different personalities, see you also need to be sure to balance out 'work' with 'play' so that she learns that training and what not is fun and not stressful or boring! soon she'll always want to be with you XD
As for toilet training, there's many ways, but all of them take a long time. my favoured way is a mix between discipline and praise. (I always find that a lot of praise, encouraging the good behaviour, often gets rid of the bad on it's own, no scolding needed, but with housebreaking, i lightly scold as well. simply because it means if i come in one day, the dog will be looking guilty and apologetically at me, so i know he's soiled somewhere and i can find it and clean it before it stains >.< this is a very rare occurrence now, but it does occasionally happen. Like when he is ill, or has diarrhea.) basically, if you catch her beginning to pee, or look like she's about to crouch or squat, clap your hands loudly to distract her, clip on her lead and take her to your back garden. take her to one spot each time, and she'll learn that's where to pee and poo. (plus it saves you scouting around when she's older) when she pees or poos, praise her and give her a treat (I suggest you have healthy treats/dried food with you at all times, especially as she's a pup. buy a little treat bag or something :3 i would use dried food and just don't give her as much at her mealtimes as it stops her from getting fat ). always act overly excited when she does this, as it emphasizes how good she's been. if she pees or poos in the house, point at it with disapproval, and make her see what is bad. if she doesn't look, take her, and move her head to look at it, pointing at it and saying 'naughty' or 'bad' etc in a disapproved tone - don't smile. at all. even if she gives you puppy dog eyes. don't do it as it encourages the dog and tells her she's good. then snap on her lead and take her for a long walk or go outside to the pee spot. when she pees/poos, repeat the praise.

[Bethicus]

(sorry for the amount, but there was a lot of things you asked XD)

walking well on a leash is one that takes a very long time, and one which a lot of people never master because they think that it causes no problems, but it does. Basically this is just persistence, and there's many ways of doing it. The two most efficient ways i know are these:
1. Every time she pulls (and i mean every time) turn around and walk the other way - tugging lightly on the leash as you do. then as the dog nears your side, give her a treat. then continue walking. When she pulls again, turned around and do it again. At first it may be that you're doing it CONSTANTLY but every correction now is saving time correcting later :3 i reccommend doing this first in your garden or another open space free of distractions like small animals and new scents. she will soon learn to walk by your side, as you treat her when she's walking by your side. after a while, hold the treat by your side, and once she's walked there for a while, give her the treat. :3
or the other way:
2. Every time the dog pulls (again, every time) stop, say stop, and pull your dog back to your side. when they stop pulling and effectively 'stop' say 'good boy' or treat them. then say 'go' and walk forward again, stopping again when your dog pulls. because your dog will want to keep walking, they will learn that they can only do so when at your side. therefore, you need a short leash when doing this :3

As for the biting, i find this easy. Many people have their own methods. Firstly, have LOTS of rawhide chews and bones. i recommend the rawhide chew more. now every time you catch her chewing something she shouldn't, take it off her, tell her 'no. that's not yours, it's mine.' then offer her a rawhide chew and say 'this is yours. chew this!' instead. do this EVERY TIME you catch her chewing something and she'll learn what she can chew.
Also, teach her the commands 'drop' and 'off'. 'off' is easiest so start with that. kneel down to her height and then Let Pepper see a treat and then put it in your hand, and close your fist around it. She will probably try to get it out of your hand. firmly say 'off' and as soon as she does (be patient, she WILL eventually) immediately open your hand and say good girl. she'll learn this pretty quickly. then you can move onto 'leave' where you hold out a treat and say leave, closing your hand and saying off if she goes to take it, and when she leaves it for a certain time, give it to her. If she meets your eye and gives eye contact, then give it to her as it teaches her to listen to you and ask your permission. (giving you eye contact is practically asking you and showing she's listening to you and waiting for you to tell her what to do.)
drop is harder to teach, but it works similarly. you say drop, and when they lose interest in whatever they've got because you're not giving them attention/chasing them, they will drop it and when they do give them a treat, say drop again and praise.

then once these have been learned, you use them in every day situations - when she is biting things or whatever. you can also extend 'off' to moving 'off' people if she jumps up, and 'off' sofa's and beds and stuff. it's a very useful command :3

Now (finally) for the barking thing. A dogs main reasons for barking are boredom, loneliness, frustration or being frightened. It's that or they've been unintentionally trained to bark. (giving them attention when they bark.)
start with tiring her out with a long, fast, tiring walk (so she's practically asleep XD) and she will probably sleep the whole day - not barking which is good. and be sure to introduce her to dogs and people and socialize her so she's not bored or lonely (eradicating reasons above). Often this stops barking. if not, you need to learn to control it - not stop it. when she barks, call her, clap your hands, make a noise, and she should stop, confused. when she stops, praise her. you could also teach her to only bark under certain circumstances, and then she will only bark then (also controlling it) :3

hope i've helped! oh and a couple of things! if you can, get a small bag - a small bag/bumbag/fannypack whatever you want to call it, and fill it with healthy treats/dried dog food and maybe a couple of small rawhide chew. have this on all of the time so the treats can be used :3 for example if you catch your dog chewing something, say drop and when she drops it praise her for dropping it with a small treat and then give her the chew :3 because i don't think you'll always have the treats on you, otherwise, as you often won;t be expecting these things to happen XD (like chewing on sofas and stuff)

[fearless .]

Okay, I have a Pitbull/Shepherd mix-- I've known her since she was 2 weeks old (we fostered her mom and siblings) so we have a fairly concrete bond with each other. She's turning 4 tomorrow actually! But she's not the brightest light in the closet. For the longest time, there wasn't really a need to train her advanced tricks-- she knows all the basic ones. But, now I'd really like to teach her some new tricks, and I've got her about half way there with some of them! Anyways, here's her trick list:

sit
down
stay
over [roll over]
spin
come
kiss
do your potty (she fake pees sometimes--it's hysterical!)
smile (with her teeth)

Now, I'm in the process of teaching her to heel and loose leash walk, being part Pitbull, I've had major problems with her pulling. She wears a head collar out in public, and sometimes on our street depending on who's out. But I'm slowly teaching her to loose leash walk and she is progressing!

I'm not running into any super huge problems with heel, but I'm teaching her the Bang! trick and I'm having problems with her knowing what to do when I show her the hand signal and say "Bang!" I have to guide her with my hand (not touching, just guiding). through the whole trick. Is there any advice you can give me for this?

I'm also having trouble with crawl. The first few times she does inch forward but after that she just lays there looking at me like I'm crazy for holding the treat that far away from her. Any advice to keep her moving?

Since Bea's a Pitbull--although she doesn't look like one, she still has a lot more muscle in her chest and it throws her off balance a little. Unfortunately, because of this, when I try and teach her to Beg or Sit Pretty, she just sits there and doesn't even try to get the treat.

She also has dog-dog aggression, what I think is defensive aggression, "the best defense is a good offense". She is getting better but I think all of my hard work was erased last night when we went for our walk. There were about 5 or so people behind us in a group with 2 dogs, a car parked with a dog inside it with the windows open, and another car driving by (she hates cars, she acts like they're other dogs and attacks them, but she's also progressing well on this). All this was just too much for her at once and she went crazy! I know some people can say I could have prevented this by walking the other direction on my street but when I went out--nobody was there! They all just drove/popped up. Ugh... I feel bad for her because she was just overloaded with stress and fear that I couldn't calm her down because it was just too much.

If anybody has an advice-- I would love a little help! Thank you!

[shadow.wolfdog]

Thanks for all the advice, Bethicus! I'm going to work with my new puppy for a while and I'll let you know how it goes.

[AppaloosaCake]

@Bethicus...+ Tuesday...
Thank you for helping these people while i was away, i get busy sometimes, and its hard to reply asap anymore. <3 :) Big help.

Okay, I have a Pitbull/Shepherd mix-- I've known her since she was 2 weeks old (we fostered her mom and siblings) so we have a fairly concrete bond with each other. She's turning 4 tomorrow actually! But she's not the brightest light in the closet. For the longest time, there wasn't really a need to train her advanced tricks-- she knows all the basic ones. But, now I'd really like to teach her some new tricks, and I've got her about half way there with some of them! Anyways, here's her trick list:

sit
down
stay
over [roll over]
spin
come
kiss
do your potty (she fake pees sometimes--it's hysterical!)
smile (with her teeth)

Now, I'm in the process of teaching her to heel and loose leash walk, being part Pitbull, I've had major problems with her pulling. She wears a head collar out in public, and sometimes on our street depending on who's out. But I'm slowly teaching her to loose leash walk and she is progressing!

I'm not running into any super huge problems with heel, but I'm teaching her the Bang! trick and I'm having problems with her knowing what to do when I show her the hand signal and say "Bang!" I have to guide her with my hand (not touching, just guiding). through the whole trick. Is there any advice you can give me for this?

I'm also having trouble with crawl. The first few times she does inch forward but after that she just lays there looking at me like I'm crazy for holding the treat that far away from her. Any advice to keep her moving?

Since Bea's a Pitbull--although she doesn't look like one, she still has a lot more muscle in her chest and it throws her off balance a little. Unfortunately, because of this, when I try and teach her to Beg or Sit Pretty, she just sits there and doesn't even try to get the treat.

She also has dog-dog aggression, what I think is defensive aggression, "the best defense is a good offense". She is getting better but I think all of my hard work was erased last night when we went for our walk. There were about 5 or so people behind us in a group with 2 dogs, a car parked with a dog inside it with the windows open, and another car driving by (she hates cars, she acts like they're other dogs and attacks them, but she's also progressing well on this). All this was just too much for her at once and she went crazy! I know some people can say I could have prevented this by walking the other direction on my street but when I went out--nobody was there! They all just drove/popped up. Ugh... I feel bad for her because she was just overloaded with stress and fear that I couldn't calm her down because it was just too much.

If anybody has an advice-- I would love a little help! Thank you!

Heel- The head collar is a great thing to use, just keep what your doing up, because your doing it right.
Bang- Can you explain what you are trying to do just a little more explanitory? I think i understand what your saying, but not 100%. Keep guiding her through it though, With one hand do the bang, and with the other hand, guide her. Then sometimes try not to guide her and see what she does, and then keep doing that. :) Make sure to give her big pets along with the treat though.
Crawl- I may have read what you said wrong, but don't automatically hold it far from her, keep it close, and slowly pull away from her. If it doesn't work, maybe find a treat or toy she cannot resist. <3 Sounds like a wonderful dog.
Aggression- Maybe try to take her to that class again, or find a cheaper class that offers more then just a few sessions. You must keep up what you do with her, because if you don't then she could just stay completely the same. :)