I. Film Your Dog
First, use your smart phone, tablet, or camera to make a video recording of your dog doing tricks. Make sure we see your dog perform the tricks in response to your verbal and/or silent cues. You don’t have to be an excellent videographer or use any fancy transitions or music (unless they’re part of your dog tricks!).
Just make sure the videos provide indications that the terms and conditions of the trick are being met, such as distance (e.g. “from 12 feet”), duration (e.g. “6 seconds”), handler out of sight, and others.
You and your dog may perform all the tricks in one take, edit multiple videos into one sequence using software such as iMovie, or make a YouTube playlist. Here’s a great example:
II. Be Sure To:
- Title your video or include a message to me providing dog’s name and the title attempted (e.g. “Rita’s DMWYD Intermediate Trick Dog Title”);
- Add captions, if you can, as in “Mason’s Expert Trick Dog Title Application,” naming and numbering the behaviors (e.g.”1. hand signals 6 behaviors; 2. jump through circled arms; etc);
- Include in the video description or in a message to me, a list of all tricks and their point value (e.g. “1. honk a bike horn 1 point; 2. weave poles 2 points, etc.”) or the corresponding Animal Actor Checklist (e.g. “White Card 3A Leave It, 3B Sit”).
- Double-check that the video shows clear cues and responses. We need to see the dog responding promptly and appropriately. In the case of Stunt Dog, distances are important and should be clear on the video. Ditto in Animal Actor, and make sure the video captures direction of eye gaze and interaction with actors. The more unaided and independent the dog is, the better. In Stunt Dog and Animal Actors the dogs must be independent. For Trick Dogs, some luring–no more than 50%–is allowed for Novice Trick Dog, no more than 25% for Intermediate, and not at all for Advanced and Expert, as in this very thorough Facebook video submission by Rowan Hettes:
III. Upload Your Video(s)
Upload your video somewhere it can be accessed by me and anyone else with whom you’d like to share it. YouTube works well, but you might also use some other cloud-based server such as Drop Box, Google Drive, or Facebook, as long as I can access the video with the link. If YouTube makes you nervous, keep in mind you can control your video privacy settings to limit who can see your video.
On YouTube, you can also make a playlist, control the privacy, and send me the playlist link. What’s a playlist? Here’s the one I sent DMWYD for Mick’s Championship:
IV. Send Me the Link.
You can message me through my contact page.
Better yet, you can join the Magic Dog Tricks Spark Team on Facebook and share your video there. To make sure I see it, please tag me.
If you’d like me to evaluate you and your dog for an AKC Trick Dog Title, click here to register and copy-paste the link into “Order Notes” at checkout. If you made a YouTube playlist, copy-paste the link to the entire playlist.