You could have a lot of fun with this. You can play “trivia:”
“Dog, what’s the thing on top of a house?”
"Roof, roof!
“That’s right! And what is the texture of sandpaper?”
“Rough, rough!”
“Yeah! What sort of vegetable is a potato?”
“Root, root!”
“What is the name for Elizabethan neckware?”
“Ruff, ruff!”
The house we lived in when I was a kid was a two-storey with an one-storey addition tacked on the back, so the upstairs bedroom windows opened onto the roof of the addition. This roof had a gentle slope down to the back yard.
I would play ball with my sister’s dog - she (the dog) was very good at catching a tennis ball before it went off the edge. (Yeah, being about 8 years old, I probably was secretly wishing for an accident :rolleyes: ).
Eventually I would throw the ball right out into the back yard. The dog would run up the edge of the roof, barking excitedly. Then, she would turn her back on the ball, run up the roof through the bedroom window, through the bedroom, hall, stairs, living room, dining room, kitchen and out into the back yard and grab the ball. She’d retrace her steps back out to the roof and give me the ball.
I also was able to teach her to sneeze on command.
The most useful thing we know is “leave it” which we learned in school. My Dolly is a big big baby though and while she can leave things really easily when we’re walking by them…if we practice it inside she has a hard time. I lie her down and put the object in front of her paws, she cries and moans and barks at it until I give it to her.
She doesn’t do any exciting tricks. Her big thing is bringing people shoes. She taught this to herself - whenever someone comes in the door she finds the nearest shoe and brings it to them. I started using it in my favor when she stopped doing it voluntarily. Now when people come in I remind her to get a shoe, which keeps her occupied enough to not jump up and get too excited. She’ll get a shoe then come sit down by the person with the shoe in her mouth until they take it from her. If they ignore her she’ll go into the main room and wait for them to come get the shoe.
I don’t think i could ever teach her such useful tricks as beer retrieving or smiling. She’s just too princess-y 
My Polaris does this with socks.
When she was a puppy, I’d catch her with a sock, order her to drop it and when she did, give her a chew-toy to show her that THIS is what you chew on.
Somehow, it got mixed up in her little two-watt brain that I want her to bring me socks and drop them at my feet. She digs them out of the laundry basket, or if we leave the dresser drawers open, she stands on her back feet, perfectly balanced, and takes a pair. She brings them to me, tail swishing in excitement.
I’ve taught my dog several cool tricks.
[ul]
[li]We give him snacks on disposable plates. When he’s done, he picks the plate up in his mouth and hands it back to us.[/li][li]He craps on command. When he was a puppy and I’d take him out for a dump, he’d get distracted by something and forget to poop. So I would ‘snap’ his leash and tell him to “FOCUS!” Now, I just give him the command “focus” and he takes a crap.[/li][li]The emergency recall is a good idea, but I haven’t needed it. He stops whatever he is doing and returns to me at a dead run when I whistle a single sharp, rising note.[/li][li]If I need to round up my chickens, I tell him to “Get the chickens!” and he herds them into their henyard.[/li][li]We’ve taught him to retrieve his toys by name. All of his toys have specific names and he learns what each one is. His rope toy, for example, is called “grrr” because he growls when we play tug-of-war. So telling him to “Get your grrr” will cause him to run off, find his rope toy, and bring it back for a game of tug-of-war.[/li][/ul]
:smack: Here I was wondering how you got a dog to enunciate “two”! :smack:
I trained our last dog that when people sneeze, dog biscuit come out their nose. People who would come over during allergy season would have the dog’s undivided attention.
We taught our border collie to get out of sight when we say “We’re eating” … it’s great, because I HATE moochy dogs, plus it really impresses people that she immediately goes away and waits until we are finished.
I can’t take credit for this – DH did it.
We have to chain our Belgian Malinois, Budy, in the backyard during the day. Otherwise, he climbs or jumps over the fence and goes wandering the neighborhood.
The chain is secured to one of the support posts of our porch. Sometimes, Buddy will run around in circles around the post and wrap his chain around it.
DH taught him “go around” to unwind himself and “go back around” if he runs the wrong way.
We’ll have to work on the emergency recall, though all of our dogs know “drop”.
My Gordon Setter Kharma is quite possibly the smartest dog I have ever owned… and I have known many. She usually learns a new trick in 1 or 2 short sessions.
She says ‘I love you’ (Sounds like ahhh ruff roo)
Says mama (VERY clearly)
Says NO… this can be annoying, because she does not do it on command, but TELLS ME NO if she doesn’t want to do something I have told her :eek: (Can’t wait till I take her in the obedience ring and she decided to tell me NO to a command…)
Waves
shakes hands
High fives- I LOVE this one, she sits up on her haunches and puts her paw up over her head to high five me - WAY cute!!
backs up
the usual obedience commands-sit, down, stay, come, heel, working on retrieving
I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting…
I forgot about that one. What’s funny with our dog is that I taught him the names of two similar, but not identical, toys as “the red one” and “the blue one”. So when strangers visit and he brings them a toy I’ll say “No, fetch the blue one” and he’ll drop it and go find the other toy. Nearly every time the reaction is “I thought dogs were colorblind!”
We had a dog and we taught it to pee on the rug, shit on the kitchen floor and eat slippers and socks.
We figured it was overtrained so we gave it away 
The most useful trick I ever taught a dog was the one I taught my one and only chihuahua dog–to put her front feet up on my knee as I was standing, then stiffen her neck when I’d put my hand on the back of it and use it to pull her up my leg. She’d walk right up to arm level, and it was especially useful when she’d get tired of running behind my bike–I could put her in the basket without having to get off the bike.
I had a Dobie who knew “kennel” meant to run into his doghouse as fast as he could and stay there until released and “corner” sent him into his sleeping corner–dog was much too big to allow him to sprawl anywhere he wanted. The Aussie shepherd we had at the same time trained him to flush birds–she’d run toward some bushes barking and get him excited, he’d run too but she’d pull up, wait for him to run behind the bushes and scare the birds out then leap up and catch them on the wing. We saw this scenario play out way too many times for coincidence. The Aussie is probably the smartest dog I’ve ever had–you could teach her anything in no time.
Pratchett the cat is trained to jump up at a finger snap and wrap all four legs around my SOs arm while biting his hand–SO scoops him up and Pratchett knows he won’t be dropped, it’s absolutely hysterical. He also fetches toys and drags in very large sticks from the back yard–silly cat thinks he’s a Labrador!
Stiggs the cat has only one trick, which is “smell my finger,” but he does it with style–and he won’t sniff the same finger twice, you have to give him a different finger to smell each time or he ignores you.
I trained my German Shepherd to pull me on a skateboard anywhere I directed, the word for “go faster” was “kitty, kitty, kitty!” She knew left from right and knew all her obedience commands in English, German and Japanese interchangeably. She was trained never to eat anything on the floor unless specifically told to do so–very handy.
All the dogs know “out” means leave whatever room they’re in–handy for the underfoot problem during cooking.
My cousin’s dog would retrieve the paper from the mailbox every morning (they lived in the foothills in Cali, and their mailbox was like 100 yards from their house…). That was the only dog I have ever seen to get the paper… And if you got it before he did, he was pissed. Getting the paper was HIS job, and you better let him do it… Sadly, he has passed away, but will never be forgotten…
I taught my golden retriever to army crawl across the living room… This served no real purpose, but was very amusing to see…
I haven’t really been able to teach my dogs anything much. But my dog Alfie (a large terrier mix) taught himself a cute trick. When I make spaghetti, I usually save a few strands of cooked spaghetti to give to the dogs. As soon as I say the words “pasta party,” Alfie stands on his hind legs and prances around the kitchen. I dangle the spaghetti, and he snatches it in midair and eats it while still standing upright. It’s funny to watch. The other two dogs like the spaghetti, too, but not enough to dance for it.
I knew a woman whose border collie was trained to get you a roll of toilet paper from the closet in case you ran out.
I taught Bubba (such a nice dog I named myself after him) the following commands:
down = lay down - if running into danger, STOP
get = wherever you’re standing, you’re in the way - go somewhere else
sssssickem = There’s a squirrel on the deck, in the flower pot who needs to be invited to leave. Quietly go to the door and I will yank it open to give you the element of surprise
get 'em Bubba = look at the television, there’s a (dog/cat/something that interests you) on it
let’s go pee on something = go to the front door. We’re going outside so you can pee.
Well, I teach obedience classes, train dogs and compete in agility and flyball, so the dogs know a lot of stuff. The most fun “party” tricks, though, are “sympathy” - Holds one paw up and looks sad. “Are you drunk?” causes the puppy to spin around backwards then roll over. Oh, and puppy knows how to play the drums… I’m going to start more “trick” training now that the obedience stuff is pretty well set.
Now THAT’S awesome.
Love the tricks! And the tips.
Besides the common sit, stay, down, come, etc. I taught our dogs “gentle”. If I’m giving them a treat and not tossing it for them to catch, I say “Gentle” and they will barely part their teeth to pick the treat out of my hand. We had to teach this because the Bassett Hound didn’t seem to realized how big her mouth was, and the Border Collie/Black lab cross was snappish when taking treats by from your hand.