Today I taught my two year old golden retriever Sophie to crawl on command.  It’s a neat little trick that is fun to teach and will keep you, your dog and guests entertained. So, I was milling around earlier today and it was cold, wet and dark outside.  We had already been on a rather unpleasant walk to the beach, wrapped up head to toe in waterproof snowboarding gear (a great look in England with no snow to be seen) but after we had been for a few hours and Sophie has had her power nap she wanted to play.  I could not face the great outdoors again and as you may know if you follow me on twitter my eye infection is not helped by the cold British winds!

Treats

Any way back to the all important dog training!  So Sophie was suitably calm after a good walk and a nap and we were ready to go.  I knew as soon as I used a treat to lure her to the down position she would go into her default ‘play dead’ so I had to use something extra special so she could not react more quickly than I could direct her behaviour.   So, as odd as this sounds I used bread!  Its important to use whatever motivates your dog the most rather than something you perceive to be tasty to the dog and for Sophie it’s bread all the way.

Lure

I held the bread in my right hand and placed it on the end of her nose and guided it to the ground.  Then I moved my hand forward, making sure to keep it low to the ground to stop her from wanting to get up into the stand.  Unfortunately I moved my hand a little too quickly forward which resulted in a bit of a bunny hop.  So starting again I moved my hand across the floor very slowly.  I repeated this for about five minutes or so and then we had a little play and cuddle to chill out.  I have to be careful with Sophie as she can get quickly stressed when learning something new.

Command

About half an hour later I repeated the process and began to add a verbal command.  Using ‘crawl’ as she moved, followed by ‘good’ and a treat.  This was repeated a fair few times and quickly she was following my hand signal without food being present.  Tomorrow we will be working on moving the hand further away concentrating on the verbal command.

All in all a successful training session and by doing it in small chunks she picked it up quickly and we avoided the rain whilst keeping both of us entertained.

Photo by Tim in Sydneys