Clean Run - October 2013 - 20

elevated will encourage him to
pick up his front feet and increase
the chance that his other front foot
will bump in to your other foot.
When you’ve got both of your dog’s
feet on your feet, keep rewarding
him for that contact and then start
wiggling your toes to see if he’ll
maintain that contact. If he comes
off your feet, stop rewarding, and
try again. Begin rewarding heavily
for foot on foot contact.
Once your dog can keep each of
his front feet on your feet (one paw
per foot), start shuffling your feet
forward in small increments, rewarding all the way, until you can
take a few steps, with your dog’s
front paws on your feet—the two of
you progressing forward together.

Put Your Mouth on the Leash

one of the nice things about tugging
is that it does allow me to steal short
moments to look away and survey
the environment. This trick can accomplish the same thing as tugging;
it keeps my dog engaged, earning
rewards, and allows me to steal
glances at the environment. I’m feeling when to reward my dog for putting his mouth on the leash, rather
than looking at him to see if he is.

Hand Targeting

Start at home because at first you
may need to look at your dog. Take
your leash and make a 6-8" loop out
of it, so that the loop comes out of
your fist. Make sure that the end
of the loop is big enough for your
dog’s mouth to fit comfortably.
At first, reward your dog for nosetouching the loop. Then, progress
to rewarding your dog for mouthing the loop. Usually, a dog that is
enthusiastic about nose-touching
the loop will mouth it if you “forget” to give a cookie for the nosetouch, as if to say, “Hey you, can’t
you see I’m touching this thing?!”
Hold the loop loosely enough that
you can progress to rewarding your
dog for pulling a short length of
the loop through your hand (maybe
just 0.25" at first!). Then, withhold
treats until your dog pulls a halfinch or so through your hand.

I’ve had dogs that like to tug and dogs
that don’t like to tug. Some of the
dogs that don’t like to tug ringside
absolutely love tugging at home—
they just don’t feel comfortable
enough ringside to tug and pressuring them to tug in that environment
isn’t going to help them. However,

however, if you use the power of
random reinforcement, you’ll find
that your food-motivated dog will
keep pulling and pulling on that
loop, hoping for a cookie, keeping
him occupied, and giving you a
chance to survey the environment.
Don’t forget to pay up, though!

Work up to being able to hold
out a loop of leash, while you are
looking away, and reward your
dog when you feel the loop being
pulled through your hand. You can
progress to holding the loop a little
more firmly to encourage your dog
to pull harder, or not, your choice!
Dogs that are more food- than toymotivated can sometimes learn
to enjoy pulling on the loop of the
leash just for the sake of pulling;

This is one of the more obvious
tricks, and there are perhaps a lot
more creative tricks out there, but
it’s a classic for a good reason—it
is a great trick that you can train
and reward by feel rather than by
look, and you’re going to have your
hands with you when you head to
the ring so it fits the criteria I listed
earlier perfectly. You can do this
trick quickly, repeatedly, with either
hand. While you’re doing it, feeling
your dog bump your hand with his
nose, you can reward your dog and
simultaneously survey your surroundings. And as with some of
the other tricks mentioned here,
it’s a two-for-one trick because you
can switch hands and ask your dog
to target your other hand as well.

I like to have 5-10 tricks that I can cycle through while I’m waiting so that
neither of us gets bored. Tugging on a tug toy ringside can be a rewarding game
for many dogs, but for some dogs it can be too arousing, or even unsafe if
the collecting area is filled with highly aroused dogs.

Clean Run | October 13

Clean Run - October 2013

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