Difficulty: Easy Prerequisite: Touch Items Needed: Clicker, Treats, Masking Tape or a Shiny Disk
Go to a Place is a fundamental trick used in movie production. In this trick, you will teach your dog to go to a certain place, marked by a small piece of tape or shiny disk. You can also use this trick to teach your dog to lay down on his bed or sit on a rug. It can also be paired with other tricks for a more exciting show. (Bang—Trick #52, for example). This is an easy trick to teach and can be funny watching your dog prance on top of his mark, eager for a treat! This trick has many uses, one of which is to get your dog to pose with you for family portraits.
Step 1: Have your dog touch the training stick. Click and treat. Step 2: Place a piece of tape or a disk on the floor. Use the training stick to point to the marker, and click/treat when he is on that spot. Practice this several times until your dog knows to go to the marker to get his treat. Step 3: Call the marker by its name (mark, spot, disk, etc.) just as he steps into it. Click and treat. Repeat until you can say the name of the marker and he'll go right to it! Now, you can place the marker anywhere in the room where you want your dog to sit or lay down.
OUR EXPERIENCE
This was an interesting trick to teach Caspian. We previously had taught him to sit on our foyer rug by catching the behavior with the clicker; then attributing the name "rug" to the action. But training him to go sit or lay down on a marker is much better, since we can place the marker down anywhere we want him to be. We chose some masking tape for our marker and made an "X" with two small strips. We didn't want Caspian thinking that he was supposed to pick up the marker.
TEACHING TROUBLE
My dog will understand to go to the place after one session, but later in the day he can't remember it at all and we have to start over again! This is perfectly normal. Keep practicing the trick and your dog will eventually remember what to do. Try keeping practice sessions to five or ten minutes and give him a generous break afterwards. But don't let the break be too long - come back to reinforce it within the hour. Also, always end on a good note. Sometimes your dog might start to get frustrated even after doing the trick several times. When this happens, he is very close to getting it. It's important to keep going so that you can end positively and with a jackpot.
Tip: "For a funny routine, teach your dog to 'go to a corner' using this trick and combine it with Act Ashamed—Trick #40. "You should be ashamed of yourself!" You can tell your dog, "Go sit in the corner!"
