My goldendoodle puppy doesn’t ever want to come back inside. I told my beagle “go get your sister” as I tried rounding up the puppy. Now when I say “go get your sister” the beagle runs to the puppy and baits her into chasing him into the house.
It wasn’t a command, but I distinctively remember the first time my cat growled at me for picking him up and I set him down immediately. Now it’s his way of telling me to let him down whenever. So I guess he taught me the command instead!
Not a command perse, but my dog has learned that “hey Google, what’s the temperature outside” usually means a walk is coming and gets excited.
My cockatiels have learned that “Hey Google, broadcast it’s dinner time” means it’s time to fly to the table and ambush the food as it’s delivered.
“Car” When we are walking in our neighborhood (there are no sidewalks) I’ll say “car” and he’ll move into the grass area when a vehicle approaches.
there are no sidewalks
What a world.
Wife taught our dog to crawl.
She was trying to teach the dog to lay down and stay while she backed away with the treat. Our dog figured that if she kept her belly on the floor and crawled over to the treat it should be fine…
So my wife said “Good crawl!”, and kept working on it with the dog. Now the dog crawls on command.
I heard you could train your dog to tell you when they need out by putting a bell on the door. I didn’t have a bell, but did have empty beer can and random nuts and bolts.
She learned to knock over my beer if she wants out.
You can train your dog to do way more than just ring when he wants out. I have a cat that I trained, he now has 12 buttons in the same location, with concepts like “later” and “now”, “yes” and “no” etc. The fact that I sometimes need to argue with my own cat that indeed he was fed already and treats are not an option is ridiculous to a lot of people. The cat gets incredibly excited once I get new buttons (but they’re expensive, so I don’t do that often). Some time ago a friend was teaching their maltese puppy to use buttons for a walk. I spent half an hour with it, got it to push buttons, got it to recognize that button = treat, later got it to recognize different buttons do different things. Training a dog is easy mode once you’ve trained a cat lol
Incredible. I have bells on my doors, but my dogs don’t use them. They go to the door and stare at me when they have to go out. I’ve developed a sixth sense to tell when a dog is watching me lmao
Best my pup can do is sniff the bell which makes the quietest ‘tink’ and unless I am in the room I have no idea .
Kinda somehow trained my dogs to expertly remove socks from feet… Started as a puppy with an interest in toe biting, decided to try to mould it into something positive. Lots of "OWW"s later, she will delicately nibble the tip of your sock to seperate a bit of fabric from the toe, then grab on, and tug straight backwards (you gotta point your toe to help her out) and voila! Sock removed.
Thought it was dumb but 7 years later, my pregnant wife thinks it’s the fucking bees knees
My cat has learned how… delicious? ear wax is. I was itching my ear once, she started licking my finger, and now if I even raise my right hand near my head she flips out and runs up into my space just in case it’s ear wax time.
Note I don’t actually have a ton of ear wax or feed it to her, but something about my finger after I scratch my ear just drives her crazy.
Seriously though my ears are clean 😂
Cats are sensitive to a protein in our earwax so they find it appealing. I had a cat so obsessed he would hunt down my ear plugs (I had to put child locks on the bedside table drawers). Occasionally the earplugs would fall out in the middle of the night. One morning they both fell out and I grabbed one and thought I may have accidentally dropped the other. My cat raced in out of nowhere and I chased him away but I couldn’t find the plug. Fast forward twenty four hours later and I found a full ear plug in a pile of vomit. Thank goodness he was ok, but that damn cat zoomed in and swallowed that earplug whole in a millisecond and it makes me laugh thinking about it to this day.
My wired iPhone earbuds vanished one day.
A few weeks later, one of my cats went under the bed. I jokingly told him, “hey, bring my headphones out, will ya?” In front of my partner.
Seconds later, I heard the distinct klak klak and he brought them out.
If my partner wasn’t there to see it, NO ONE WOULD EVER BELIEVE THIS STORY (even me)
Dang! So it’s not just my dorks, good to know
Cats love ear wax. With one of my cats we get wax out of her ear and let her lick it. I think it’s the protein.
My dogs have learned if they sit up and beg and spin I can’t fucking resist it and will give them a treat. The little fuckers taught me a trick.
You too?!
My partner and I bought these shitty squishy balls for our cats when they were kittens. They’re super basic dumb squishy bouncy small balls, we call them Regular Ball. Our cats are grown up now and, when snacky, will bring Regular Ball from WHEREVER THEY HIDE THEM to our room where we hang out, where I cannot resist giving them TREAT.
My cat Siegfrieda thinks that “bitte” (please) means “free petting”. That’s because I usually tell her bitte when she’s taking too long to obey the command. For example…
- Zizi! Komm nach Hause! (Zizi, come home!)
- [Siegfrieda ignores me to chase the shadow of a butterfly]
- Frieda, komm nach Hause. Bitte. (Frieda, come home. Please.
- Prrrwwwwn? [runs in my direction]
Ich liebe deine Katze!
What a wonderful kitty.
The beep one of my monitors makes at power off (at the end of my workday) catalyzes my three cats into immediate action. They could be passed out or hidden, and ignore me when I walk by (I’ve tested this), but the moment they hear that “beep-chime” they materialize.
They know it means I’m available for cuddles and snacks. Confuses the hell out of them on the occasional weekend when I take a Zoom call for one of my volunteer gigs. I’ll also use it to summon them when one vanishes for too long and I need to make sure they didn’t get out.
Cat gets treats when the dishwasher starts, not sure if I trained him or if he trained me but that is what happens 100% of the time or else he gets loud.
Uh… Pretty sure the cat didn’t get trained
Your halfway to teaching your cat to do the dishes
My cat loves riding around on my shoulder, and also loves food. He figured out that he has a better than average chance of getting treats after a shoulder ride. The counter in the bathroom is the highest in the house, where he can get the closest to my shoulder. So I apparently taught my cat to come running when he hears the toilet seat go up. Does it every. Single. Time.
My cat blesses people when they sneeze
I think we’re going to need a bit of an explanation here
Anytime someone sneezes, he runs into the room, makes eye contact, and meows kinda loud once. If you don’t acknowledge him, he may continue ‘murr’-ing if he likes you, until you do say thank you or pet him. It’s really fricken cute. I think it’s because my wife sneezes a lot and we’re very consistent with ‘bless you’ and 'thank you’s ourselves. Neither of us are religious or superstitious, so it’s kinda silly, but it seems polite
Maybe a sympathetic “mrow?”
I think it might be mirroring 🐱
I taught my half Maltese half shih tzu the command move over. Every time I’d take her for rides she’d sit in my lap and if I needed to go around a corner I’d say move over and put her in the passenger seat. Now if she’s in my spot on the couch she’ll growl if I try to move her. But say move over and she’ll go
Lol
“Move over!!!”
little shit
I have taught my cat that “Scootch” means “you have about 5 seconds to move on your own or I’m going to move you.” It has been very effective.
“High five” instead of “paw” for two dogs which wasn’t the accident. The accident is they learned to associate high five with wanting something. When they want pets, food, bones, or toys they obsessively high five at you.
My cat does it now too. Maybe they learned it from the cat who saw they got treats for high fives. My wife hates it. I think its hilarious.
My sister’s dog does “business deals” with me (offers a paw to shake) and it gets to the point where I have to tell him I don’t do deals on the weekend or I’m out of goods to trade. That little ferengi never truly believes me though he thinks I’m just trying to play hardball …
Exploitation begins at home
Slightly unrelated, but one time I let out an amazing belch and nobody was around to hear other than the dog, so I high five her. That alone was worth teaching her that trick.
My mom’s dog will hold your hand when she wants something or is in trouble. She knows we think the gesture is adorable, so she tries to manipulate us with it. It never works lol.
