I have a Super Smart Dog!

Like up there ^ ^ ^, I have a super smart dog! Mani is soooo smart; and it’s not that I just realized it, but he never showed me before. We were making our video for the 21-Day Project. It was going to be video #5 of 21 where he was learning to lift his left hind leg. A trick he does not know yet. He knows to lift his right hind leg but not left. Anyway, I was training him but it wasn’t going well; he was starting to shut down on me because he was not understanding what I wanted him to do. He was lifting his right leg instead of his left.

Then we changed methods. Instead of targeting books, I started pushing on his paw pad from behind and when he held his paw up, I would click/treat. After about 10 of those I went back to the book target. I started low. AND HE DID IT! After I knew he understood that part I added another book. He did that one, too. Then I added another book. When I gave him the command, he didn’t even target the book he just lifted his leg and held it there waiting patiently for the click/treat. I was amazed!! He has never moved that fast with a trick before. And I though after I used the light physical manipulation he would completely shut down. But he didn’t and he finished the trick. He is in no way done learning this trick; we only did it for about 10min. But I was just blown away by how fast he picked it up. So even though this video was scheduled for 3 days from now, I am going to post it today, cause I am soooo proud of him!

Silvia Trkman always calls her first Border Collie, Bu, 'autistic.' It was funny because I thought Mani might be autistic from the way he acted when I first got him. If you fold his ears back, he looks exactly like a picture of Bu that I saw. So since they had those two things in common I nicknamed Mani Bu. In different ways. Well, I can’t stress enough how proud I am of my 'autistic' puppy! =))