Hi guys.  Welcome back to Animal Wonders.  This is Tinker, and today we're going to have a little bit of fun, because I wanted to show off the work me and Tinker have been doing training.  Now, a lot of people don't think that little dogs like this can be trained or not many people do it, so I wanted to show off that they can be trained, so Tinker, let's have some fun.

(Intro)

So the first thing I did was I wanted to make sure that I found a treat that she enjoyed and it was kinda easy.  It was actually Ruby, our big dog's food, that she was kind of jealous, she wanted it, so I'm like, well, that's gonna be her treat.  So that's what I use.  Here you go, have some treats.  So the next step was, I needed to get her focused on me.  I mean, she likes the treats, but how do you get a dog to know that they're doing something you want them to do? So that's where the clicker comes in, and I have a whole video on clicker training.  I'll put the link in the description.

So, we started working on clicker training, which was just, click, and then give her a treat.  So once she understood that a click meant a treat was coming, I wanted to get her to do something so I trained her how to target, which is all she has to do is put her nose to my fist here, my finger, so just like that, as a simple target and once you do that, you can get them moving around wherever you want them to go.  Good job.  

I'm gonna move over here so you guys can see a little bit better what goes on.  She's looking at me and she's always looking for a cue.  Good girl, so I'll target and then I click right when she does it.  Now, the next thing, natural thing that you want to teach a dog to do is to sit and she had no clue.  She had no idea what I was trying to get her to do and she was--she actually got kind of nervous 'cause she's like, wha--why are you putting your hand so close and what's going on?  It was really frustrating, so it actually took three full training sessions before she got the idea of what 'sit' was and this is the way I did it.

So I was having her target, so I just put my target above her.  Good girl.  What she first started to do, and you saw, what she tried to do was she tried to target up like that and I didn't want that, so what I did was I just moved it right there and when her bottom touches the ground, I want to reward her for that and we'll refine it so up and above her, so sit.  Not rise up.  Come here.  And sit.  Good girl.  

Most dogs, like bigger dogs, it's really kind of the simplest thing to teach them is the sit, but with her, she got so nervous about everything that she got confused and that's why it took so long, so if you are having trouble training your tiny dog, don't give up after one session of them just being really confused.  Keep going and keep being consistent and they will get it, if you continue to be consistent and clear in your communication, they wil get it, even if it takes them longer.

The next thing I taught her was to turn in a circle and that was actually pretty easy.  She already knows to target my hand, she knows to target and follow my hand, so I just brought it around in a circle and she follows it and then you can make that quicker.  Ready, go quick.  Good girl!  Notice I click at the very end of her circle, so not during it, so she goes in a circle and I click as soon as her head comes all the way around.  Good girl!  You, you're having fun.  Most important thing in a training session is to have fun.  

So now I have three different behaviors.  I have target, sit, and circle, so right now, I'm working on getting her to rise up and do that really cute little like, tiny dog sit thing that they do, so we're gonna try that and the way I'm gonna do that is by--I want her to sit and hold up her paws, so we're gonna try that, so sit and target.  Good girl.  That was close.  That was close.  We can get it better.  That was really good, really good try.

So sit.  Good girl!  Look--oh my gosh.  I'm so excited.  Look at her go.  Let's see if she actually does it, 'cause you're sitting--so rise--nope, sit, and up.  Good girl!  Look at you!  Look at you!  Smarty pants.  Oh, you guys, that was so good.  I'm really impressed.  i thought--we'll put those treats down there--I thought that was gonna take way more tries than that one session, based on how it took her three training sessions just to learn sit, but now that she understands like, this is a game and she gets treats and there's clear communication, I think she's just gonna learn more and more and more and oh my gosh, that was great.

So the reason I stopped there and I didn't continue to do it is because you want to make sure it's still fun.  I want to make sure she's still reinforced by the food and that everything about it is just positive.  We don't want her getting bored or satiated with food, you know, too full, so we just make them nice and short and sweet and we'll get back at it maybe tomorrow.

Thanks, guys, for letting me share Tinker's training session with you.  We have a lot of fun.  I hope you guys did too and if you'd like to go on an adventure with us every week, subscribe to our YouTube channel, AnimalWondersMontana.  Thanks, guys.

(Endscreen/Credits)