Dog training videos for fun activities?

March 3, 2015 5:08 PM

Loads of links all over ask.metafilter for basic dog training, but I want FUN things. I really enjoy Kristin Crestejo's videos, for example. Anything 2-10 minutes long about a new activity with steps for training it would be perfect.

Bonus points if the dog is a border collie, since I have two.

My dogs are almost 10 years (Kipp) and 11-1/2 years (Tess), both with a little arthritis (on tramadol and not in pain), so we prefer ground-level activities (i.e., avoiding lots of jumping or climbing of stairs, etc.).

My dogs know 40+ tricks. We do nosework, agility, etc. at home already. I can teach and they can learn with no problem. I have loads of books, we've been to classes, etc. I have all the books by Kyra Sundance already, those are great.

I just want some videos to inspire.

Thanks for any ideas. :)

posted by AllieTessKipp to Pets & Animals (2 answers total)

Best answer: Have you seen the show Superfetch? It used to be on Netflix and I think it's on Amazon. The premise of the show is "people train their dogs to do fun and semi-useful tricks" (using a border collie to herd small children to the carpool car, asking a lab mix to fetch diapers from upstairs for a baby, having a pit mix help take the trash out) and it's all very positive and fun. :D I love it to pieces. Zak George is the trainer involved--if you like BOUNCY! POSITIVE! ENTHUSIASM! AND ENERGY! he's really quite good. I believe the highlight was training a very motivated cattle dog to ride a tandem bicycle after his human through a crowded park and pedal (!!), but I'm sure there are other cool things you'd see.

What trickwork do they know? I assume they've all got skills like targeting down? One thing I keep meaning to work on is getting a skateboard and teaching my (30 pound, smallish) dog to push herself around on it. That should be fairly low impact on joints, but it also is pretty physical in that it requires a lot of self-confidence and balance. Let me think about where I can find youtube videos I like for trickwork. Team Unruly has some good ideas, too--you might find this post by Jennifer Andress to be fun. I want to say she has some other fun little tricks over at her personal blog, but I'm having difficulty tracking down the bit where she explained how she taught her dogs to "mix" a little margarita by identifying all the ingredients by scent.

I also really like some of the food puzzle toys--we've enjoyed the Toys R Us puzzle toy with four different kinds of compartments, the blue one with yellow, orange, red and green places to hide food? The different kinds of tasks seem to be more interesting to my particular dog than most of the puzzle toys that only use one skill to get at food. Will think on this more later and get back to you when I can actually think of videos...
posted by sciatrix at 6:09 PM on March 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the ideas! Superfetch looks great. I found it on Amazon (I don't have Netflix and should have mentioned that).
posted by AllieTessKipp at 9:30 PM on March 3, 2015