Psssst'ing at your dog....

I was at my friends training class last night and there was a lady there working a dog, she was using positive methods, but the odd thing was she was doing this to her dog all the time....
Psst sit, psst leave..and so on....

However - when I came home...I decided to see what would happen if I did this to my guys (just the noise)....

Well - it was really quite hilarious! Tassle and Siren both started rushing about (the way they would if they had scented a squirrel or seen a rabbit!) they went absolutely stupid - Trip just leapt in my face and nearly broke my nose! anyone else tried this nose! Not quite the desired reaction!
Anyone else tried and had funny reactions from their dogs?

If I pssst at the boys, they go all alert and will bark a few times - exactly as you described Tassle and Siren doing - as if they'd seen a rabbit etc.

I will occasionally psst at them, but it's more an 'oi, look over here' than any sort of correction technique....

Yes i own up to pssting my dogs sometimes, more often than not to distract them from doing something they shouldn't be !

I've never done this to my dog but she would either get freaked out or look at me like I was nuts.

So glad it is not just mine.....do you have a word for them to 'look' for rabbits etc?

I tend to say Look, Tassle recognises it so well that if I am sining in teh car and I happen to sing the word - she leaps up to look for whatever it is!

We use look too for the ducks and geese. Dahlia knows that it means to follow where my finger is pointing and she usually drops into a bit of a crouch and waits for the command to chase.

We've not really got a word for 'look' - we've got "where is....", but since whatever they 'look' at get chased (and often killed) I've given up!!

Last time I told them to 'look', Murphy took a low flying pigeon clean out of the air

Just tried it on Tilly. First she just stared at me with a VERY allert look, (the look we get when we say the C word!) Then she went mad, barking and running backwards and then back to me. Strange dog!!

According to my dog, "Tsssst!" or "Psssst!" is shorthand for 'go find the cat and bark at her' !

It has been mooted that CM uses a strong aversive perhaps an e-collar, to pre-condition dogs to the Pssst!, possibly during the time he insists on working with the dog on his own away from the owners?

As to 'look' I either use "Squirrels!" or more generally "Whassat?".

I just tried this with Monty who is sound asleep and he looked up at me as if to say "shut up, i'm asleep".

If he wasn't so tired then he'd probably think the noise ment that there was a cat outside and then he'd go nuts about it!

I also can't make tutting noises at him as that has the same effect - the kind of tutting you'd make at a bird or a rabbit or something!

As for telling him to look well that's a lost cause because if i say look and point in the direction i want him to look he looks/runs off in the opposite direction. He wasn't front of the queue when intelligence was dished out!!