When Mollie was a baby pup we used to sing a song to her by the chordettes called Lollipop - swapping the word lollipop for Molliepop, we would sing it high pitched and excited and Mollie loved it getting excited and dashing round the room to find a toy to present to us then launching herself at us to lick us to death. All good fun !

Now the Lollipop song is used on a TV advert and she is a fairly big 8 years old, she goes mental - racing around gets toy and nearly knocks us out or over in her excitement to lick us madly !

Ever wished you never made that game up

when one of my late cats was a kitten my OH use to play the bitet bitey scratchy game where he flipped the cat on his back and rub his tummy whilst the cat grabbed on with his baby claws & baby teeth and tried to bite him - great when he was a kitten not so great when he was a full sized tom cat

We deliberately hyped up our dogs so they wouldn't be scared near firework season but now whenever there's any loud explosion on a movie they go mental thinking it's playtime.

We'd also bought a standard lamp years ago when we had our deaf border collie and she thought it was great fun seeing the shadows it created so we'd make the shadows jump and laugh as she'd pounce on them. Unfortunately she developed a real determination to catch all shadows and would regularly burn her nose on the carpet and once chased after a guy's shadow who was crossing the road - because she was deaf we couldn't shout her back and were yelling at the top of our voices for the guy to stop so we could get the dog's attention onto one of our shadows and get her safely away from the road.

to both of you!

I totally agree that there are sometimes unexpected outcomes to what we teach & do to our pets!

My particular bugbear is teaching a dog to give a paw. With some dogs this has meant that they paw at you for everything, do the extent that one of my friend's dogs has ripped the pockets of my dog walking coat, broken the zip on my bumbag & scratched/bruised my knee!!

I also taught Barney to do a "finish" at the end of a recall & sit in front of me. If I'm not quick to praise/treat him for the recall or sit, then he immediately circles me to do his lovely "finish". This can sometimes make attaching his lead a problem as we end going round each other in circles. But I have no-one but myself to blame for that one!

But my favourite is a friend of mine who had a very long-haired GSD cross. As a youngster he was quite lively & in warm weather he would sometimes get a bit over-heated so she taught him to cool off by lying down in streams/puddles & then to do to a "shake" on command. Unfortunately it meant that he thought he was supposed to lie down in any muddy water that he came across, whatever the weather, & then come back to his owner & shake all over her. Not quite the result she hoped for!

Be very careful what you don't teach them or what the Mother forgets to teach them as you can get very strange cats.

I had to teach my Impossible Princess a lot of things as she was either snatched from the nest too young or her mother was lazy.

Poor IP!

Bear in mind when you teach a "finish" the dog is supposed to wait for the command, not do it on its own initiative

Likewise with "paw" people should only reward those responses they have asked for, not all and any the dog offers sponteneously, or it switches to the dog using the technique to train people.

However.....I used to do some competitive obedience and once when I was competing the judge said "call your dog" i.e have him come from where he had been told to sit while I walked away from him and to sit in front, before the finish.
He did this beautifully and was in a lovely straight sit, right up close, looking straight into my eyes when he sat up perfectly on his haunches with his front paws neatly held in front of his chest (i.e the "beg" position).
The really amusing thing was not that he did it but how well and neatly he did it so myself, the judge and the spectators were all laughing, even though he lost points
My fault of course. The previous week I had taught him this new trick and position as "say please" from a sit in front of me so he "helpfully" anticipated what I was going to ask him to do next.
(I don't like to ask a dog to "beg", totally anthropomorphic as they don't know the meaning of the word but there you are, "say please" seems more respectful)
Another time I taught him to draw the curtains at night. that was fine until he got too confident and enthusuastic and nearly pulled the curtain rail down so I had to dispense with the service.
I also taught him lots of useful things: he would lead my horse in from the field and take him to the right stable, shut a door, fetch his dinner bowl, find my keys etc etc .
On one occasion he even let me in when I locked myself out.
He knew "find the keys" and he would retrieve to my hand so I just had to get him to "find the keys" and "Fetch" them to my hand through the letter box.
Pretty good though as many dogs wouldn't generalise a hand through the letter box at human head height as being the same as a hand attached to a whole person at human waist height.
He was a very remarkable dog altogether though
Enormous potential but very challenging to manage being sensitive, stubborn, strong-willed, VERY bright, very determined, high energy, confrontational etc but absolutely wonderful once you'd earnt and kept his respect which was no easy task.
(Had to delete some smilies as over post limit *disappointed smilie*)

Yes I agree that the dog should wait for the commands rather than use their own initiative, but having laughed & rewarded these self-initiated behaviours, again, I only have myself to blame.

Wow ~ your dog was taught some very useful behaviours. I dread to think what mine would get up to if I tried to ask them to draw the curtains.

And I get your point about calling it "begging" ~ I always say "please" & "thank you" to my dogs just out of respect & politeness but I don't suppose they have a clue what it means!

I can ask Barney to bring several different toys to me by teaching him the names of certain toys. I remember once asking for a particular toy that was a fluffy football made up of segments that were velcroed together. Unknown to me the dogs had been playing with this toy & ripped the velcroed segments apart. When I asked Barney to fetch this particular toy, he seemed to be taking rather a long time, & then I heard this strange rustling noise. The velcro had stuck fast to the carpet runner in the kitchen, so Barney, bless him, was dragging toy plus 6 foot carpet runner into the sitting room, much to our amusement .

LMAO well at least we aren't the only one's then !

Mollie takes the washing out of the washing machine for me when I am not strong enough and helps make the bed. Both things she was starting to do naturally and we just encouraged her into the habit. She can open doors too which has meant we have to bolt the front door or if she gets bored she would let herself out to visit the neighbours (some of whom aren't dog fans ).

I got my lab to do my washing and ironing, only now, its obsessed with putting everything through hot wash. ruined my good top.

this made me laugh out loud lol

I'm trying to teach my JR to bring me the post at the minute,the letters are coming back to me in right old state.

One of our family cats was called Shady, we got him in 1993.

Many years later when Eminem released The Real Slim Shady, my sister used to play it all the time. The cat would go mental.

When Amber was little my OH used to tease her by sticking his foot out of the bed so she would 'chase' it.

Low and behold any hands or feet that ever dare to pop out from under the duvet when we're asleep - they get attacked within miliseconds

Tell it to stop doing the household chores and to just stick to doing the lab tests

We play "bitey cat" in our house. The victim wears a jumper with pockets and sits on the sofa, as soon as the hands go in the pockets Millie thinks the game has started and attacks the hands.
That's fine if you know the game and what to expect, not so great for one of our friends who was round recently. She only put her hand in her pocket to get a tissue.........

When our Holly was around 6 months old we would sit in the conservatory with the door open to the garden so she can wander in and out.

At that time my OH would cycle home and come in via the garden so I taught Holly to investigate by saying "whats that?" and she would go mental and run out into the garden barking, which is a great trick to deter any intruders.

However I never realised just how often we use the phrase "whats that?" in everyday conversation until the dog goes mental everytime!! I now wish I'd chosen a command that wasn't so common!

I'm definitely with you on that one! If I see friends when I'm out walking the dogs I tend to say "whose that then?" & the dogs get all excited & run over to say hello. The downside is it does depend on me recognising people correctly & I think it's about time I got my eyes tested. The poor lady who looked just like my mum got the shock of her life as 2 labradors bounded towards her.

LOL!!! poor woman

Unfortunately Holly doesn't even need a command for her to go bounding up to complete strangers, if I dont have her on a leash close to me then she's licking everyone who passes her! We now go walking off the leash in secluded areas to avoid any more mucky paw prints on complete strangers!

We taught the puppy to play 'hide and seek'. It was great. Small child would run off and the puppy would go find them. Laughs all round.

We've now got an adult dog who thinks that every running adult is playing 'hide and seek'. So every jogger has to be tracked and found. They don't all laugh.

No sense of humour some people lol

I used to think it was hilarious when Chloe was a kitten and latched himself on to my lower legs and clung on whilst I walked around the house. Not so much fun now he's full grown. I have the scars to prove it and have to run to the bedroom and jump under the duvet before he can attack me each night.

Also, as a kitten he was rather fussy about his food so I would have to 'big it up' at meal time with lots of oohs and aahs and ''what's this lovely yummy chicken i've got for you dumpling' etc etc etc.
Now he expects me to go through the same rigmarole at each feeding time, even if he's just woken me up at 4am for his breakfast.

Our very pretty little rescue pup grovels in front of every single person when on a walk. Everybody in the village knows her, thinks she is sweet and rewards her with a treat!!! She loves other dogs and has even the fiercest being friendly to her.

However she gets mortally offended if ANYBODY dares to ignore her, and just sits as if to say "Do you know who you just walked passed?" (mental block should this be past??). She has just started realising that she can dispense with the grovelling and cut straight to the chase by pawing until she is given the treat.... Back to walking on the lead and asking those kind hearted people not to give her treats anyway (perhaps it is for the best).

After weeks of trying to teach Lola paw and driving everyone insane (including myself) she finally cracked it last night!!!!!!! Since getting home earlier I only have to look at her and her paw is outstretched lol!!!

Wats funnier is that she is very catlike in her manarisms and posed - the way in which she stretches her paw out looks like shes going to do the Macarena

Something I may regret later, my new kitten Brandon surprised me on sunday by jumping from from the second step up of the stairs and into my arms. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He has since done it on demand three times. It might not be so cute when I find a 14lb tom hurtling towards me in a few months time.

That makes me think of the opening credits for "Bewitched" while it's in cartoon, when Samantha, as a cat, jumps into Darren's arms and then becomes herself as a human again

Showing my age again