Tricks that Don't Look Like Tricks

My girl is 9 months old tomorrow.  What a good girl she's growing up to be.  She came with the name Sunny before I renamed her Lucy.  Oh, but she is still my little Sunshine.  Every single day!

And she already knows lots of tricks.  But lots of them don't look like "tricks".  They're commonly just classified as good manners.  But it's taken lots of training and effort to make it look so natural for both Lucy and Ricky!

Here's an example.

This is a picture of Lucy in her crate.  Notice the door is wide open.  Lucy won't come out of her crate until either Fermin or I give her her release word, which happens to be "Free".  In other words, she waits to be invited out.  No jumping around, howling or pawing at the door.  Just good, calm behavior that gets rewarded often.

In a previous post, I wrote about Lucy and Ricky's door manners.  That's another example of something we've worked hard on, but doesn't really qualify as a trick.

But the Ricardos also know lots of party tricks.  And they love learning knew ones-- I just have trouble sometimes thinking them up!  But I'm going to get back to working on that a little more.

I'll try to remember to video them doing some of those tricks people seem to like to see- like weaving thru my legs, and giving me high fives.  But those tricks are no more impressive than the Ricardo's good manners.  They're just tricks that don't look like tricks.

and with a big smile on her face!