Indigo and I have been learning a new trick. It's one I've been wanting to train but thought it might be pretty difficult so have put it off til now. I call it "reverse", where your dog walks backward around you in a circle. Once we started it went pretty fast!
The first video shows how we trained it. I have seen this trick trained using an ex pen around behind you in a circle or the method I used. If you have a narrow hallway with a wall at one end it works very well for a large dog. I started with her body in front of me, so her rib cage is touching my knees, facing my right hand. I rewarded that position a few times to keep her close to my body. Then I had her move into heel position and rewarded that. From there I had her back up behind me and clicked and treated any movement backward without her turning around, which is what she wanted to do in the beginning. Then backward some more until she appeared in front of me again. At that time I wanted her to keep going in the circle so I used my right hand with a treat in it to lure her head away from me, making her body turn into my knees again, click, treat, and done!
And here is the finished product away from the help of the walls. Now we need to learn the other direction!
Yup, that's Indi, ALWAYS up for a game!
This is my contribution to a site called "dog faming" on facebook. The anti dog shaming!
