Trick Tips
Trick Tips
Roll Over: Get the dog into the down position. Say "roll over" and start pushing your dog until he rolls over. I suggest that if you have a big dog, teach him this when he is a small puppy. I taught Bo this when he was about a year old, and by then he was huge. Rolling him over took a lot of effort. Another method has been suggested. Basically, once the dog is in the down position, take a treat and bring around the dogs thigh so it tries to reach over and ends up rolling over. Bo realized that all he needed to do was turn his head the other way to get the treat, so this wasn't effective with him
Play Dead: Once again, get your dog into the down position and say "play dead". This time, when you push, stop the dog half way when he is upside down. Praise lavishly. For a while, at least when training for play dead, do not ask your dog to roll over because your dog may get confused.
Spin: With Rover standing in front of you, hold out a doggie treat and show it to your Rover. Hold it so your Rover can't just take it out of your hand. Now lead Rover with the treat in a circle while saying SPIN. After Rover completes the rotation, give him the treat, and praise with "Good SPIN!" and repeat. After a couple of training sessions, try it without a treat, by just having Rover follow your finger. Finally this evolves into a simple finger spin and the vocal SPIN command.
Shake: Simply say SHAKE and take Rovers paw. Praise Rover and give Rover a treat. Repeat this step a couple times. Rover will eventually get it and start raising his paw after you say SHAKE and before you reach for it. Lots of praise! Stop training for the day and reward Rover for being such a good boy!
Beg: Have your
dog sit, facing you. Hold his favorite treat just above his head and tell him,
"Beg." Your dog will probably lift his front feet off the ground to
reach the treat. As soon as the feet are lifted, even a little bit, give him the
treat.
Speak: This is usually a simple one to teach if your dog likes to bark at you. Trick is to get her to do it on command and from distances. First decide on a hand signal that is not similar to any other. You could use a motion of opening and closing your thumb and fingers (facing the dog). This looks like a mouth opening and closing. Or you could use a closed fist, twisting motion. Tell your dog to "speak" at the same time. When she does, reward with treat immediately and say "good speak". If your dog doesn't bark readily, continue to give command until she gets really fed up with you and barks. Then quickly reward. She won't know why but if done enough, she'll get the message. Gradually give the command verbally only and then hand signal only. Increase distance to the maximum comfort zone.
Crawl: Get your dog in down position. Hold a treat in your right hand with your left hand on your dog's back (farther back on large dogs). Move your hand with a treat up and down (short movements) while saying crawl. As your dog moves forward, hold rover down with your hand on rover's back. Move treat hand away from rover so rover has to follow to get treat. Reward initially after any movement and then require longer distances. If rover has trouble crawling, this can be done under someone's legs or under a solid chair or low agility table.
