Funny training mishaps

This made me laugh so I thought I'd share.

I wanted to train Cain to bring me a can of drink from the fridge but there was a problem. There handle on the fridge is impossible to attach a rope to so he can't open it. Also the fridge is on a tiny slope which makes the door swing shut on his head!

So I changed the trick to a cupboard. So I've been teaching him to open and close doors. Today we moved onto retrieving a can of Coke for the first time. All went well at first, Cain bought it to me several times and then............

He must have bit down too hard, punctured the can and Coke exploded over the kitchen! It sprayed in my face, it sprayed in poor old Cain's face, up the cupboards, up the walls, up the cooker.............

I had to laugh though. Poor Cain got the shock of his life. I mopped up quickly then switched to a small plastic bottle of Coke. That worked much better. Cain was a little wary at first but soon got over it when it didn't explode again!

In the end training went well. In one sessions he has already picked up the four stage pattern
1) Open door
2) Take out bottle
3) Close door
4) Bring the bottle to me

Such a smart cookie

What funny training mishaps have you had?

I think all my training mishaps come in the form of Rupert getting over excited, launching himself at me and making my nose or mouth bleed.

When Murphy was younger, OH used to do the training classes with him.

He was (and still is) a very eager to please dog (though not very bright!). I had told OH to make sure Murphy did his toiletting before going into the hall where the training was held.

It was assessment night, and OH and Murphy had to do some heelwork to commands given by one of the instructors, using the 'proper' commands.

It was only on finishing an almost perfect heelwork section that OH realised Murphy had wee-d the whole way round, without breaking stride, and had actually wee-d up his leg on the finish!!

There was a perfect trickle of wee in the pattern OH had been asked to walk (including puddles where a wait or halt had been).

He never, ever forgot to make sure Murphy had been to the loo properly before training....

Ah training can be very funny.

I remember when I first started doing agility training and had only done obedience so was struggling to get Polo to work on my right. He hand targets my left hand so I thought, easy, just get him to target my right hand. I am stood in the middle of a field with my arm stuck out and Polo moves around in front of me and just stands looking at me. OH is watching from the van in the carpark. He asked me afterwards what I was doing. I explained that I just could not get Polo to target my right hand. He laughed and just said Polo was doing exactly as you taught him. Of course, it was my hand signal for stand in distance control. Duh

I could not help but laugh when I asked Polo to take the seesaw in agility and I think he thought it was a dogwalk. He just ran. Fast. And kept running and took off through the air. His face was priceless. Thankfully it didn't put him off.

I start off sendaway training with traffic cones, when my elder dog was about 6 months old and she had gone out about 300 yards, I called her back and she picked up the traffic cone and galloped down the hill with it; every so often she had to stop and put it down to find where I was as it completely obscured her vision and all you could see from my end was a cone with 4 legs and a tail.

It later became her party piece.

Am loving this thread


When Dex first joined us he had a very, very ingrained habit of leaping up to greet anyone who came to the house. I tried all the usual things, including throwing treats, distracting with treats, and so on. Nothing worked.

Then I read an article by a trainer who said that dogs hate having their front paws held when they are on their back legs - thus if your dog jumped up, just grab their paws and they would be off balance and dislike it.

The next time Dex jumped up at home I did just that. He looked at me, I looked at him waiting for him to withdraw his paws, but turned out he loved it and we ended up doing a delightful quick step around the kitchen for the next five minutes

I taught my old pittbull to do that years ago, then I added throw away the can/bottle for me. My mates just thought I was super lazy hahaha

I tried to teach Louie to nose touch the floor - he did, but almost broke his nose in the process, then I was sat on the floor thinking of what else I could do with him, and he randomly just started giving me kisses..

Then I moved onto touch and I held my hand out - and he slammed his nose into my face instead

That reminds me of when I was teaching Polo to target an object on the floor. I used a broken tile. He was doing well and I decided to be more adventurous and put the tile the other end of the room. Polo ran at it plonked both paws on it and skidded further across the room.

He looked round at me as if to say "Cor what d'ya think of that then? It's gotta be worth a jackpot!"

I had to teach Sam to sit and wait while I went through a door first as part of a college training assessment. It's not something that I'd specifically taught as I was happy with door control (not charging through, but going out before or after as the situation dictated) so I taught him it in a couple of days by making him sit, wait and follow every time we went through a door.

Being a clever and very mischievous Collie, Sam took his training to heart and it took me another couple of weeks to train him that he could go out for a wee on the garden without me actually going through the door before him into the cold winter night