Luring

Firstly you need to get down onto your dogs level, sitting on the floor is usually the easiest way to teach this trick.  Then ask your dog to lie down. Holding a treat between your fingers so your dog or puppy can lick and sniff at it use your hand to guide your puppies nose to the left towards their shoulder.  You should find your puppy follows your hand and turns their head, which will lead to their weight being shifted to one side.  Now you can tell your puppy and give them the treat.  Repeat this a few times, only rewarding when your dog has its nose on the treat, almost looking behind himself/herself.

Training your puppy to lie on their side

Repeating the same action that got your puppy to turn their head and shift their weight continue to move the treat further across their shoulders, encouraging your dog to reach for the treat.  This will cause your dog to lie on their side and you can now reward.  Repeat this action multiple times until you are able to use one swift motion and your puppy happily follows the treat.

Lowering the head

Now you need to move the treat slowly back towards the floor at the front of your dog.  Your puppy should follow the lure so that his or her head is touching the ground.  This is now the ‘play dead’ position.  Reward your dog and gently stroke them, encouraging them to be relaxed in this position.  Repeat this for about five minutes a few times a day, without adding a command but pointing to the floor once they are in the position.

Adding the cue

After your pup is happily lying in the play dead position when lured with a treat you can add the ‘dead’ command.   The sequence is lure into position, ‘dead’, ‘good’, reward.  This will need to be repeated every day, a few times for about a week until your dog is ready to lose the lure.  You can do this gradually still using your hand but without the treat to guide your puppy into position.  Make sure that you reward as soon as your puppy is in the ‘play dead’ position and give the ‘play dead’ cue just before feeding them the treat.

Extending the length of the ‘play dead’

Once you can say ‘play dead’ or point to the floor and your puppy assumes the position you can begin asking them to stay their a little longer.  This is a simple process of withholding the treat for a second or two.  Make sure you take this slowly in order to not undo the hard work you have already put in.  If you wait too long it is likely your puppy will jump up to try something else to get that reward so take things slowly.  Just wait a second and then build up the time slowly by no more than two-three seconds at a time dependant upon how patient your dog is.

Cool extras

You can make this trick more fancy by using a gun motion when you want your dog to ‘play dead’ as opposed to pointing to the floor or using the command.  Simply replace the pointing with a gun motion, followed by the point and reward.  After many repetitions and given you are rewarding frequently your dog will associate the cue of the gun motion with the action ‘play dead’.