She has proper tennis balls (1) and squeaky toys to play with, but she has just learned their names. Ask her to fetch her ball and she can now look at one of her 'squeakies' ignore it and go fetch her ball. Ask her to fetch 'squeaky' and that's what she fetches. When she catches, she stands there with it in her mouth and will not bring it back to you until you say 'good catch' - even then, she will likely through it at you.
When she was very young, I somehow taught her 'ready? 1, 2, 3 go' and we would set of at a run. Now she stops at the top, or bottom of a flight of stairs and will not move up, or down without the '1, 2, 3'. She has learned 'wait' and 'stop', you can stop her dead as she tears up or down stairs, or when trying to cross busy roads. 'Over' gets her to cross a road.
If I put something down for her which is too hot for her to eat, she has learned 'wait, hot' to give it time to cool.
(1) I buy her ex-match tennis balls, because they are cheaper and they last. The usual sold for dogs tennis balls she demolishes in five minutes.
When she was very young, I somehow taught her 'ready? 1, 2, 3 go' and we would set of at a run. Now she stops at the top, or bottom of a flight of stairs and will not move up, or down without the '1, 2, 3'. She has learned 'wait' and 'stop', you can stop her dead as she tears up or down stairs, or when trying to cross busy roads. 'Over' gets her to cross a road.
If I put something down for her which is too hot for her to eat, she has learned 'wait, hot' to give it time to cool.
(1) I buy her ex-match tennis balls, because they are cheaper and they last. The usual sold for dogs tennis balls she demolishes in five minutes.
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