Versatile Vallhunds
Vallhund Trick Training by Sally Rowe
Lady
When I finally convinced my parents to let me have a puppy (12 years ago) we visited Discover Dogs at Earls Court with our shortlist.
I wanted a small dog that would be good with children (I had a younger brother and sister) and that would be easy to train. We settled on a Vallhund fairly quickly and brought Lady home before Christmas.
As a general rule, Vallhunds like their food. Lady in particular LOVES her food and as such, has been very easy to train. Even if they aren’t as stomach-driven as Lady, Vallhunds have a natural tendency to work with people rather than against them
(this is typical of herding breeds – think of the Border Collie) and a naturally high intelligence level.
Wave
I started with Lady taking her to puppy classes where we learned 'sit', 'down', 'stay' and to come back when she was called. After a few weeks we could do all of these so I asked the trainer to give me some more ideas.
Lady then learned to 'hold' items, give her paw, roll over and spin. It wasn't long before the trainer started to run out of ideas so I took out books and searched the internet to find more things to teach my clever little Vallhund!
At 12 years old, Lady currently knows over 70 commands and is still eager to do some training at any time, although her hearing isn't what it used to be so commands can sometimes get muddled up!
The full list of commands that she knows can be seen on www.dalysdogs.co.uk.
(click on 'Lady') along with some photos and videos of her tricks. Lady has also competed at Crufts in Agility, Obedience and Flyball.
Agility
Throughout Lady's life I have trained her with positive training methods, encouraging her to do something and then rewarding her with a treat, toy or cuddle.
She loves clicker training and is very good at shaping, luring and catching style training
(you can watch videos of me training Lady and explaining these methods at www.naturallyhappydogs.com).
Some of the best tricks I have taught her are:
'Dead'
Dead
I lured her with a treat to lie down, then relax onto one side, then slowly over until she was lying on her back. I had to steady her with my hand a few times but she soon got the idea.
'Cash'
Lady knew how to fetch something so first of all I got her used to fetching coins from the floor. This took a little while as they can be tricky to pick up when you're just using your mouth!
Then I 'shaped' her to get closer and closer to the tub that I wanted her to drop them in, then finally I asked her to 'drop'. She still sometimes misses the tub but she knows what she's supposed to be doing!
'Covers'
Covers
This one took quite a while to train as she would initially keep dropping the blanket when I asked her to roll over. To work on this, I got her used to holding something in her mouth while doing other things, for example from a sit to a down to a stand.
We worked on progressively harder things such as holding an item while spinning or begging until finally I could get her to lie down on the blanket, ask her to 'hold' then ask her to roll over.
The final touch to this trick was for Lady to put her head on the floor which I had taught separately by luring her chin to the floor with a treat while she was lying down.
See the trick here!
'Have you got a cold?'
This is where Lady pretends to sneeze on command, it is one of my favourite tricks and unfortunately also one of Lady's – she quite often stands at the vets sneezing at me to try to get me to give her the treat I have and I have to reassure the vet that 'it's a trick – honest'!
To teach it, I sprayed a little (very small amount) of body spray into the spray cap and let Lady sniff it (she’s a very inquisitive dog so this wasn't a problem!). It made her sneeze and I immediately said 'Yes – good girl' and gave her a treat.
After a couple of times, Lady worked out that if she sniffed the cap and sneezed that she would get a treat so she deliberately sniffed it to make herself sneeze!
I paired a command with this so that she got used to the word, then I took the cap away and gave her the command.
This trick was probably the one that took the longest to teach as it was a few weeks of a little bit of training every now and then but eventually she got the idea and now you ask her 'Have you got a cold?' and she responds by sneezing!
For more information about Lady and Sally check out www.dalysdogs.co.uk and www.naturallyhappydogs.com