Zaltana Anatolians

Ayla the trick dog

Ayla my Anatolian Shepherd Dog is almost 11 months old now, she has learned quite a few tricks since she has been with me. Most of them were her own ideas and I have just reinforced them and put them on cue (for more about clicker training please visit my website www.anatolians-of-zaltana.com ). The first picture shows Ayla holding up her paw. She will also bow on cue, but I don't have a picture of that yet, because she hasn't learned yet to do it while I am standing far enough back to take a picture

while she does it.
She is also doing a still pretty clumsy version of sitting pretty. When she was little she would do it and then lose her balance and fall backwards, with an expression of utter surprise on her cute little face. She doesn't fall over anymore, but we are still working on getting her to learn to hold the position. This seems to be pretty difficult as she has grown from a little 30 lbs puppy to a 80+ lbs adolescent in such a short time. The second picture shows a clumsy sit pretty attempt. She loves to do it though, so I am thinking that once she is a little more mature she will figure out how to keep her balance.
What I find particularly interesting is that she is using her tricks shown here with the other dogs too, when she wants attention from them. She doesn't seem to realize that tricks that humans find amusing may not have a lot of meaning to other dogs.