I've been teaching Salty actual tricks, which he picks up fairly easily. His best executed trick is to turn in a circle on command. I teach all my pets with both hand and vocal commands, and Saltys command for this is 'Circle' with the hand command making a small circle with my index finger. Last night my son told me that Salty's new word is 'Circle'... I may have to change something , as I want him to equate the word with the trick. He's also started to string together words and said 'Hello, good boy' over the weekend. Not bad for a 8 moth old boy!