Dancing

[JMFS]

I've been teaching Gertie how to turn around in a circle by luring her with a treat while saying "round" and then "yes" when she does it. I ultimately want her to turn around when I turn around, but I'm kind of stumped with the next step / tying those together. She's not doing it without the lure (with or without treat) as of yet so we have work to do. I thought it might be fun to up our game a bit and try a little dancing, or at the least a coordinated routine. I can get her to weave through my legs to a point so we'll continue to work on that as well. She's got the bow down pat - it's her go to behavior when she doesn't know what I want from her. I think bowing to each other at the end would be funny. Any advice?

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi Jennifer,

How cool that you are training Gertie some Canine Musical Freestyle moves! She sounds like the type of dog who would enjoy that!

 

To train her to turn around with you simultaneously, I would do the following:

 

1) Start gradually fading the food lure. In other words, do a few reps without the food protruding from the hand you are using for your spinning motion. Once your dog turns around, say "yes" and feed the food. Then, start using no food in the hand you use to make the spinning motion, but once the circle is complete feed the food from the other hand. Once you are able to do several successful reps of this, move to the next step.

2) Start making your hand motion less and less obvious, build up to the point where you can just sort of point and rotate your wrist to get her to spin. Do several reps of this, marking and rewarding the successful spins.

3) As you rotate your wrist in a circle, start spinning yourself as well so that you do it at the same time. Once she completes the circle, give her a jackpot of treats! You can then gradually turn the spinning motion of your wrist in some artistic motion that is not too noticeable to those looking, but that your dog is able to recognize.

 

Of course, as with most training exercises, you may find the need to go back some steps and create some sub-steps as needed.

Happy training!

[JMFS]

How exciting! Thank you. :) Momo would be good at this if he wasn't so darn excitable once food is out. Gertie has the calmer demeanor and loves interacting with us. We'll work on it and report back!