A house-trained duck has become the world's first official "trick duck" - after watching her dog-trainer owner teach tricks to pet pooches.

Echo the duck is just four months old - but has already learned an impressive 17 tricks meant for dogs to perform.

The talented Khaki Campbell duck can jump through a hoop, walk up a ramp on queue, push a ball with her bill, weave in and out of her owner's legs, and even play a tiny toy piano with her bill.

Echo learned her impressive catalogue of tricks from watching her owner, Joe Nutkins, teach the skills to pet pooches through her dog training school, Dog Training for Essex and Suffolk.

And thanks to Joe including Echo in her trick training classes, Echo became the first duck in the world to officially earn her "Novice" title from Trick Dogs UK - the world's leading 'Trick Dog' programme.

Joe, 41, from Clacton, said: "Echo is really fun to work with. I think she thinks she's a dog, to be honest.

"She'll jump up on the bed and snuggle up with my two dogs, she's not bothered by them at all.

"She was never meant to be a house duck - I hatched her in an incubator, but it was always the plan to put her other ducks when she was old enough to go out.

"But then just as I was about to move her outside at the start of December, the avian flu lockdown for birds came into effect across the UK, so I couldn't integrate her with the other birds.

"We decided to keep her inside the house - and she just got really interested in watching me train my two dogs, Merlin and Ripley.

"I decided to see if I could get Echo to do a few of the tricks, too - and she just picked them up so quickly. She's so great."

Echo needed to learn 15 tricks in order to reach her 'Novice' title from Trick Dogs UK - but she actually currently has 17 in her repertoire, and Joe has a couple more in mind to teach her.

"I've started trying to teach her to pick a card from a pack of cards. Maybe I could make her the world's first magician trick duck, too," Joe joked.

As with training her two Norwich terrier dogs Merlin, nine, and Ripley, two, Joe uses a pea, a piece of sweetcorn, or a blueberry to teach Echo to perform tricks.

And she says the duck will happily "launch" after the tasty treat.

She said: "Ducks are naturally quite suspicious and nervous about new things, so for instance when I first put the toy piano in front of her she wasn't sure about it.

"But watching the dogs seems to give her confidence. She trusts the dogs, so if she sees them do one of the tricks then it makes her happier to do it."

And Joe, who is currently running online classes for her clients during the lockdown, says people love watching Echo the duck perform the tricks they are trying to teach their dogs to do.

She said: "Echo's got her own little following now as I have set up a Facebook page for her.

"Sometimes when I'm doing a class people will just ask if I can go and get Echo and get her to do some tricks.

"It's actually been quite handy, because my dogs are so used to doing some of the more basic tricks now that it's hard to get them to perform it slowly to show people how it should be done.

"Showing people how Echo does the tricks is a good way of demonstrating what it will look like at first - and then I get my dogs to do the same tricks to show how it will end up looking with time."

As well as Merlin, Ripley and Echo, Joe also owns six rescue ducks, 12 rescue chickens, six more chickens that were not rescues, two rescue cockerels, and three quails.

And one of her hens, Ivy, is also currently living inside the house, as she was being "bullied" by the other chickens.

With the help of Echo, Joe is currently also trying to teach Ivy a few tricks.

To follow Echo and see what she can do, visit: https://www.facebook.com/Echo-Trick-Duck-Excellent-Aventures-100704421980863.