Friday, November 22, 2013

New Book Helps Teach "The Best Dog Tricks on the Planet"

I love teaching Rocco tricks.

It's fun,  entertaining and can help promote strength, balance and focus in your pup.  And best of all it's a great way to create a  special bond between you and your dog.

We started with the basics -- sit, down, stay, come, etc., and then progressed to tricks like rollover, wave and walk backwards.

So we were interested in taking a look at the new dog tricks book "The Best Dog Tricks on the Planet," by Babette Haggerty and Barbara Call.

The book shows step-by-step more than 100 tricks your dog can do on command. Each trick includes colors pictures, easy to follow instructions and trouble-shooting tips.

What's nice about the book is that is starts with the basics such as sit, stay, down and drop it. Once your pup has the basics down, it's fairly easy to move on to more complex tricks. The book also rates each trick as beginner, intermediate or advanced and it provides an idea of the average time it will take to train each trick.

Many tricks in the book can be mastered in a week, though some may take longer.

Some of the tricks in the book include:
  • Bring me a tissue
  • Say your prayers
  • Sort the laundry
  • Fetch your keys
  • Turn the lights on and off
  • Wipe your paws
The author, Babette Haggerty, has trained Jack Nicklaus' Golden Retriever to bark the number of his major tournament wins on command, Curt Gowdy's Rottweiler to say, "Go Reds," and Jimmy Buffett's Maltese to dance on cue to "Margaritaville.”

Many of the more than 100 tricks in were featured by Babette's famous father, Captain Haggerty, on David Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks. Captain Haggerty and his dogs appeared more than 25 times and was the original inspiration for the segment.

We can't wait to get started on some more tricks. And next week, be sure to come back for a chance to win your own copy of "The Best Dog Tricks on the Planet."


Rocco practices his "roll over". I think I'd like to teach him to sort the laundry next! What would you like to teach your pup to do?

Rocco says, hiya pals!
Disclosure: We were provided with a copy of "The Best Dog Tricks on the Planet" to review and one to give away.

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UPDATE:  Old posts or new are welcome in the FitDog Friday Blog Hop! Please feel free to share any post you've written that helps promote a healthy active lifestyle for your pets. The more FitDogs the merrier!

17 comments:

  1. Chester and Gretel don't know any tricks. Come to think of it, they aren't even trained very well :) I have been wanting to work on it more though. I saw this book but am glad to know that it would be appropriate for us even though we would basically be starting from square one.

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    1. There's plenty of beginner stuff and tricks suitable for short dogs. However, I did set out to teach Rocco to cross his paws, but then I realized his little legs seem like they are too short to cross! I think that one may translate better on a leggier breed!

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  2. Oh I heard about that book. Is it small dog friendly? We have another trick book but some of the tricks aren't physically possible for small dogs.

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    1. Some of the tricks do need to be adapted to small dogs, but there are plenty of tricks a small dog can do. In one of the tricks I looked at, like "paws up" which leads to "sit pretty" among other tricks, the author mentions using a low ottoman instead of a chair. When Rocco was a wee pup, I used a phone book to teach "paws". A very small dog is used as the photo example in some of the tricks too like pirouette, head up and down and bring me a tissue.

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  3. My peeps would like me to do all house work. Not a chance. Have a fabulous Friday.
    Best wishes Molly

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    1. heehee! I'd just like Rocco to put away his toys! Have a great day!
      Diane and Rocco

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  4. Is there anything in there about teaching them how to write a blog post or post to our social media accounts?

    -Slimdoggy

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  5. hahaha...we've just mastered roll over so Scooter gets full marks on that one. Love him to do more but its steady steady with him...Looks like a fun book. Happy FitDogging

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  6. Golden LOVE to learning new tricks. Actually, learned some interesting tricks lately that it is more interactive with kids for my TD visits. Will definitely check this out and share it with our TD group too. Happy FitDog Friday. Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar

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  7. That sounds fun! We are all helping little Bailie out with her basic commands and are also throwing in a few new ones for all of us like roll over.

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  8. I have been trying to teach Dot to skip. It is SLOW going but we are getting there. :)

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  9. Wow, Rita only knows the basics, and that's probably as tricky as we'll get. But, man, "bring me a tissue" and "sort the laundry" woudl come in handy!

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  10. We need to get this book. Honey also likes learning tricks by I have a limited imagination.

    Recently, I taught her to close cupboard doors, push a ball with her nose, and jump up and touch a painted band on a utility pole. Unfortunately, they don't have much of a real world application. So maybe applying it to laundry, like you suggested, is where I should go next.

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  11. Dogs love to learn new things! Great post!

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  12. I'll have to check this out. It'll be interesting to see if I can teach multiple dogs at once too. Rodrigo would get a kick out of it. Heading to Amazon now!

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