“Stomp!” evolved from our involvement in the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, Florida. One of the cognition studies we saw in action was getting the dolphins to “imitate” what another dolphin was doing. The first dolphin was given a specific behavior to perform, like a circle spin. The second was instructed to “imitate.” The trainer never asked the second dolphin to do a circle spin, just to do what the first dolphin did.
Dog And A Dolphin
Much of modern-day dog training can be traced back to Karen Pryor’s ground-breaking book “A Dog & A Dolphin,” so we’ve always figured anything a dolphin can do, a dog can do, too.
Coming up with new training games is part planning, part evolution, and part learning to follow where the dogs lead. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Our attempts at color discrimination haven’t panned out. Every once in a while we come up with a new idea and try it again. But it’s been shoved to the back burner.
We started thinking of ways to translate the dolphins’ imitation behavior to dogs. We’ve seen many instances where dogs learn by watching each other. And we know that our body language matters – a lot. But would they imitate us, too?
Give it a shot
Teaching our dogs to “Stomp!” was as simple as having them stand in front of us and alternately stomping our feet. At its core, it’s marching in place, with an audience of one – your dog.
As soon as they lift a paw, name it and reward it! You can call it whatever you like: March!, Stomp!, High-Stepping!. What’s crucial is the timing. It’s important to mark the behavior and immediately reward it.
That’s really all there is to the dog training game “Stomp!” Demonstrate it for your dog. Invite them to join the party. Once they understand the goal of the game, you can stretch out the rewards so they continue “Stomping!”
Copying what people do
Dogs will copy what their people do. The recent social media “Hands In Challenge” proved that dogs with little or no other training would imitate their people’s actions. Try it for yourself. The videos are mostly adorable. Whatever their dogs can do, yours can, too!