Confusing the hand signals

[Mewzard]

My pup is 4 1/2 months tomorrow. I have been told by the puppy class trainer (very experienced trainer/behaviourist) that she is a very bright pup. We went into our puppy class knowing all the commands (except stand which i just can't get her to do!!).

I've taught her 2 tricks 1) "Who's brave?" and 2) "Say sorry". The hand signal for trick 1 is moving my open right hand from the front to the back of my leg; see my short video and saying the voice cue. For "say sorry" she lays down with head between paws and looks up at me - hand signal here is shaking my finger at her and i use the voice queue.

I taught her both tricks quite close together and i can't work out if she's bored of them and happens to be laying in the "say sorry" trick position or if she is mixing them up. She goes into the "say sorry" position when i ask for a "Down" and sometimes also when i say "who's brave?". Maybe she thinks it's better to do that as she gets more treats or praise?? (wouldn't put it past her to work that out!). It really seems like she's saying 'geeez mum i know this already".
She loves to learn new things and totally won't work on doing things quicker though she is pretty fast to execute them anyway.

Suggestions?

Originally Posted by Mewzard

My pup is 4 1/2 months tomorrow. I have been told by the puppy class trainer (very experienced trainer/behaviourist) that she is a very bright pup. We went into our puppy class knowing all the commands (except stand which i just can't get her to do!!).

I've taught her 2 tricks 1) "Who's brave?" and 2) "Say sorry". The hand signal for trick 1 is moving my open right hand from the front to the back of my leg; see my short video and saying the voice cue. For "say sorry" she lays down with head between paws and looks up at me - hand signal here is shaking my finger at her and i use the voice queue.

I taught her both tricks quite close together and i can't work out if she's bored of them and happens to be laying in the "say sorry" trick position or if she is mixing them up. She goes into the "say sorry" position when i ask for a "Down" and sometimes also when i say "who's brave?". Maybe she thinks it's better to do that as she gets more treats or praise?? (wouldn't put it past her to work that out!). It really seems like she's saying 'geeez mum i know this already".
She loves to learn new things and totally won't work on doing things quicker though she is pretty fast to execute them anyway.

Suggestions?

Maybe there's too many cues? Try using one cue type, either voice or visual and see if she mixes them up when you do that? That way you might be able to eliminate where she's getting confused, if she is. I tend to focus on one trick for a while before introducing another. Maybe because she's learnt them close together she's mixing them up?

Another thought was the actual words - brave and say sound similar in the middle?

[Mewzard]

OK i tried again this evening, i did one with both cues then went on just doing the voice cue. She did several repeats of "whos brave" and then just led in the "sorry" position, i think she is trying to pre-empt what i want. I ignored it and asked her to sit, c&T, then continued to practice the voice cue for the first trick; possibly over praising for getting it right but i wanted to get her excited about getting the voice cue.
Hopefully she'll remember! we are supposed to show this to our class tomorrow!

[DelsMum]

Anni could be spot on, if I said 'fly clown' (as you do lol) to del instead of 'lie down' he would drop to the floor because the vowel sounds are the same if you see what I mean.

Also remember teaching jerry lee tricks and when he didn't get what I meant he would offer the ones he could do in hope bless him! What worked for me was only doing one in each position until he had it 100%, I mean like not doing crawl or roll over or dead all together as they are both in the laying down category, so I did dead with beg or crawl with spin so he wouldn't get confused. is my waffling making any sense?!

[Mewzard]

Originally Posted by DelsMum

Anni could be spot on, if I said 'fly clown' (as you do lol) to del instead of 'lie down' he would drop to the floor because the vowel sounds are the same if you see what I mean.

Also remember teaching jerry lee tricks and when he didn't get what I meant he would offer the ones he could do in hope bless him! What worked for me was only doing one in each position until he had it 100%, I mean like not doing crawl or roll over or dead all together as they are both in the laying down category, so I did dead with beg or crawl with spin so he wouldn't get confused. is my waffling making any sense?!

You made sense! The 2 cues don't really sound similar to me when i say them. I think maybe i was doing X reps of one then switching to the other and she realised this, when i just practised 1 she got it right by voice cue 100%. I'm going to stick to practicing 1 at a time i think!

Remus sometimes goes through all the tricks he knows when I'm teaching him a new one, before he 'gets' it. As though he's saying "Is it this?" "Or this?"

And he'll often do the cutest one, like laying on his side waving a paw at me. Cos I'm soft and go Aww then give him a treat anyway!

[Mewzard]

Originally Posted by Anni

Remus sometimes goes through all the tricks he knows when I'm teaching him a new one, before he 'gets' it. As though he's saying "Is it this?" "Or this?"

And he'll often do the cutest one, like laying on his side waving a paw at me. Cos I'm soft and go Aww then give him a treat anyway!

Yes! i'm sure thats it. The 'say sorry' one is super cute and i think she does it just to get a treat. I'm going to just continue to ignore what i didn't ask for...seems to be working.