Dog Obedience Training ' the Beg Trick

Teaching dogs some tricks in between doing the training exercises your instructor is teaching you in your dog obedience training course makes training fun for the dog.

In my courses, I teach tricks that allow students to interact with their dogs on a more personal basis. Some of these exercises also help the dog build muscle. They may also reinforce the click and treat training method.

The beg is a very good exercise for strengthening a dogs back muscles - and it looks cute as well. Bigger dogs will have a degree of difficulty with this as they need to lift and support far more weight than smaller dogs.

Terriers and mini poodles are great begging dogs - almost do it as though it was genetically designed for them. Who hasn't seen a little dog sitting up, begging and waving his front feet up and down?

The Beg is a very easy trick to teach. For this trick we make use of the click and treat method.

You start with the dog sitting next to you. With a tasty treat in one hand and the clicker in the other hand, lift the treat up from just in front of his nose, straight up, slowly, so that he cannot quite reach the treat. The dog will try and get up but if you take the treat away he will sit again. Restart at the nose and slowly lift the treat.

Watch the dog's feet carefully. If the dog lifts one front foot, click and treat this. Next time he lifts one foot, wait to see if he lifts the second front foot, even if it is just a centimetre, click and treat.

If the dog keeps trying to get up on all fours, move him back into a corner so when he sits, his behind is tight in the corner. Now, as you lift the food he should find it easier to keep his bum firmly down whilst coming up off his front feet.

The two walls will help the dog balance as he comes up off his feet. As soon as the dog has learnt how to balance by himself, move him away from the corner and try the exercise again.

You should have a dog sitting up and begging after two short sessions. Do not overdo this exercise as it is a strain on back muscles, particularly with a dog that is less than 12 months old, and for those larger dogs that will need to build up their muscles to be able to hold their weight.

When you are getting a nice strong beg, you can teach the dog to extend upwards by going into a stand on just his back legs. This is an excellent exercise for strengthening the dog's ham string muscles. An agility dog has to have strong ham string muscles.

Now that you have the dog doing a simple trick, you can enjoy some fun interaction in between doing your normal dog obedience training exercises.

Nev Allen is a dog trainer with 30 years of experience and he is now sharing this experience to help you make your puppy a good, happy and well trained obedient dog. Visit my blog for more detailed dog obedience training and clicker training articles.