Three Cup Game Options

[sukibeau]

hiya - this is leading on from coinsky"s thread.

Anniskel - what is three cup game ?. I read your comments to coinsky- and kind of thought what a good idea.

So I tried out what I thought it would be with Pippa (my own version) she loves search games. But what do you do with the clicker ?.

Any other simple searchy type game tips gratefully accepted

[Beaky]

I taught Sasha to 'find it' really easily. I just put a bit of food in front of her and said 'find it' and she took it. I increased the distance and then made her have to do something to get it eg. put her front paws on something and reach. She got very good at it very quickly so now she has to be two rooms away and I have to hide it really well

I have a video somewhere - I will see if I can find it (ha ha).

Probably far more simple than you are looking for but she loves it and it can keep her amused for ages.

I have done the three cup thing too but she doesn't like that as much because she seems to have quite a sensitive nose and doesn't like pushing with it. That goes for anything, so we just do a straight forward find it with food or also a tennis ball too.

http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i309/red...iafilter=videos

Simple but quite effective.

This post has been edited by Beaky: 17th Mar 2012, 6:08 pm

[jackied]

I do the three cups thing with terracotta flowerpots - the hole in the top makes a convenient place both to drop in the treat and for the dog to sniff at Twix knocks over the pots with his paw rather than his nose.

[Annieskel]

For the 3 cup game I use plastic cups, put them on a line, put a treat under one then move them round to mix them up, then my dog can find the treat. It is wonderful to watch them trying to find the treat, they do watch what I am doing with the cups but only one can work it out that way. The cups are pushed all over the floor until it is up against something so my dog can tip the cup up to get the treat.

Another game is to wrap treats up in layers of paper, as they get furher into the paper they get treats.

For the clicker training I usually do that outside on the patio, I find that my dogs love to learn so I teach them to twirl both ways, go in and out of my legs, under and over legs and arm, jump over a pole on command, jump onto and off the bench on command, etc. The limit to this is my imagination.

For safety I only work with one dog, the others are in the conservatory watching, when I go to change dogs they all want to do it.

One dog gets really stressed if I try to teach her anything, with her I just do what she knows and if I see something that can be expanded I will click and treat for that as well.

There are lots of ideas on Youtube for mind games and clicker training which you can adapt to you and yuor dog.

It is fun

[nicola31]

We have a cardboard box that is stuffed with newspaper, I drop treats in a piece of newspaper and then scrunch them up and put them all in the box. Billy then goes searching through the box for his treats. The newspaper ends up all round the room but he has great fun doing it!! I also use the inside of toilet rolls, fold over one end and put treats in and add them to the box, soggy cardboard alert for those tho

[Pipsqueak]

Pip enjoys this - three upturned small pots on a coffee table with a treat under one of them - mix them up and then she indicates the right one by putting her paw on it

[Auntie Ange]

Pip enjoys this - three upturned small pots on a coffee table with a treat under one of them - mix them up and then she indicates the right one by putting her paw on it

This sounds good to me, wish my two were so controlled. They most often don't indicate which cup they think the treat is under, they just knock all three flying as they know that will ensure they get the treat ASAP. I use three plastic microwave pots that have had puddings in. Ange

[Annieskel]

Does it matter how they get the treats as long as they try? My dogs all do this differently, one pushes the cups all round the floor, another will knock all over to find the treat, another pushes the cups up to something to lift it, if the treat is there she gets it, if it isn't she goes to another cup, none indicate which cup the treat is under.

To me these mind games isn't about them doing it the way we want them to but them working out how to get the treat from under the right cup.