If you were to adopt a VKC^® Dog today, you would find a dog that already is completely capable. The dogs are born with Instincts that allow them to obey commands to stand, sit, beg, offer a paw, lie down, rest, show its belly, play dead, come and go, follow, wag its tail, sniff, bark, and howl. They also do these things on their own initiative.

This is pretty impressive as it is. But what really distinguishes Enrico Genosse’s dogs from any others in Second Life is the fact that they learn and they are smart.

The VKC Dogs have true artificial intelligence (AI). The intelligence of the dogs is based on Machine Learning, a scientific discipline concerning computers that looks for patterns in data and learns rules to predict when those patterns recur. The result of this complex programming is that the dogs are able to observe and act upon their environment. They can, for example, recognize you or your friends and act in particular ways depending on whom they see. Obviously, this is much more intelligence than going to a food bowl when an internal clock determines "hungry" or going to a bed when an internal clock determines "sleepy."

At the most basic level, the VKC Dogs learn through conditioning, much the same way as your real life dog responds. When a VKC Dog does something pleasing to you, praise him. Say, “Fido good” (assuming his name is Fido). This will make it more likely that he will repeat this behavior in the same situation. “Fido bad,” naturally enough, has the opposite effect. As you train and condition Fido, his personality develops, a personality that is unique to this particular dog.

At the next level, it is possible to actually teach your dog new tricks. You can think up a chain of commands chosen from among your dog’s Instincts, combined perhaps with some commands for turning and waiting. Because the VKC Dogs can learn, you can assign a single word to the string of commands, and teach that word to your dog as a trick. Then whenever you want your dog to perform these actions, you would use the single word as a command.

Imagine that you want your dog to dance a happy dance every time you come home. First you would need to think about what a happy dance might look like. Maybe your dog would bounce up and down in place, wiggle a bit, and then zoom over to you wagging his tail. Or maybe your idea is different. It does not matter, as long as what the dog does looks like the happy dance you have in mind.

Once you have figured out what your happy dance looks like, then you teach it to your dog, using the special command — learn. So you would say, for example:

Fido learn happy sit beg sit beg turn l turn r go owner wag

As soon as your dog Fido hears this from you, he knows a happy dance. When you say, “Fido happy,” he will do his happy dance. If you tell him this every time you come home and then say, “Fido good,” he soon will do his happy dance every time you come home without being told.

The difference between training and conditioning can elude people. To simplify, training involves teaching a specific set of skills while conditioning changes the likelihood that the skill will be put to use. Even if we never teach our dogs a single trick, we can still condition the dog’s personality. Of course, if the dog also knows some tricks, its personality is richer and more varied.

At one level, teaching a trick is a little like programming your calculator or spreadsheet to compute your next mortgage payment: teach the trick and the dog will simply follow your instructions. It is at the level of the personality, when your dog does the trick without being asked because you have said “Fido good,” that your dog is most deeply special and unique.

Weekly classes, taught by VKC Proven Trainers, are available at Turing Isle on the weekends. The Saturday class is geared toward the needs of beginners while the Sunday class tends to deal with more advanced ideas.

If class times are inconvenient for you, most VKC Proven Trainers love to hold ad hoc classes for you. Trainers are also available to answer your questions or to admire the tricks you have taught your dog. Check it out. ❧

Use the navigation menu on the left for links to How to Play with a VKC Dog and to the VKC Dog Owner's Manual for detailed information about training.

Many of you have asked for a list of tricks to teach your dogs so that they will be more active. The VCK staff are pleased to provide you with the commands for some of our favorite tricks for our dogs.

Getting Started

Trick names are listed below with the full chain of commands for that trick beside each trick name. To teach your dog any of these tricks, type your dog's name in the chat bar, then copy, and finally paste the entire line after your dog's name and hit Enter. 

Note that the dog does not perform the trick at that point. He has simply learned the trick. From this point forward, you will simply type your dog's name and the name of the trick, and your VKC Dog will perform the new trick you have taught him.

Component Tricks

Some of the tricks we have listed have commands that are repeated within many other tricks. You can teach your dog a trick for a specific movement you want to use again and again, then use that trick in many other tricks. We call these tricks "component tricks." Let's teach your dog some component tricks:

Now that your dog knows these component tricks, you can discover many uses for them when teaching your dog other tricks.

Basic Tricks (Can be used for all breeds)

Notice that this trick contains an underscore character ( _ ). We call this a "spaceholder" or "variable." Once your dog learns this trick, you will need to fill in the variable (or fill in the blank) with an avatar name or name of an object the dog recognizes. So, after teaching this trick, you would command your dog by saying, for example:

Fido seek Sandry

Again, we are offering different versions of the same trick, one we call "hide." Either one will work. It's your choice.