What are some good tricks to teach my puppy?
Of course a border collie can learn all the basics very quickly, as they are very bright. I remember teaching ours to “shake” (as in shake hands). After several days, she just wasn’t getting it. However, I noticed that when I would hide a treat in my closed fist, she would sometimes paw at it. Well, that’s pretty close to “shake”. So I just did that four or five times in a row. Hid a treat and held out my fist. She would stiff at it. As soon as she would paw at it, I’d say “Shake” and give her the treat and lots of praise. It took just a few minutes to teach her that trick – even though I had been working at it my saying “shake”, grabbing her paw, shaking it, and then giving her the treat for several days. She didn’t get it until I did the treat in the fist trick.
