How To Teach A Dog To Play Dead. Playing dead is a great dog trick…
Tags: Dog Training, Dog Play Dead, Dog Behaviour Training, Teach A Dog To Play Dead, Dogs

Playing dead is a great dog trick. While it’s not as essential as teaching your dog to obey commands like “sit” and “stay,” it’s simple to train most pets to play dead. It can be an enjoyable game, both for the dog and its audience.

All you need is a handful of his favorite treats, and you are ready to start training your dog to play dead. This is a fantastic trick to train with a clicker, too. Be sure to have your remote control handy if you decide to go the remote control training path.

First teach your dog to lie down

To teach a dog how to play dead, they first require to lie down on cue.

Reveal them how if your dog doesn’t currently understand how to lie down! Here is the progression:

Bend head down

Stretch to touch stomach to ground

Repeat

How to teach your dog to lie down

1. With your dog in a sit, put a treat between your fingers with your palm facing down. Hold your hand in front of their nose and lower it straight to the ground.

When your dog flexes towards the ground, mark it with a clicker or a marker word (“ Yes!” works well) and reward them. Repeat five times.

2. Next, ask your dog to sit. With a treat in between your fingers and your palm facing down, lower your hand straight below their nose, then pull it back towards yourself.

When their stomach is on the mark, ground and reward. Repeat five times.

3. Repeat Step 2, this time without any treat in your hand. Mark and reward when your dog’s tummy strikes the ground and practice it at least five times.

4. Now include a verbal cue. Say the word “down” then lower your empty palm to the ground. Mark, reward and repeat.

Attempt Step 3 once again, with no reward in your hand. When they roll onto their back, Mark and reward your dog. Repeat at least 5 times.

Hold this shape in front of your dog’s nose and move it diagonally over their shoulder the same method you did in Step 4. Mark and reward when they roll on to their back.

The last action is to include a spoken cue. With your dog already putting down, say the word “Bang!” (or an equally proper phrase) then point your hand “gun.” Mark and reward their dog when they respond by rolling onto their back.

5.Fade out your hand signal. If they respond and lie down, mark and celebrate with a benefit!

Reveal your hand signal instead of repeating the verbal cue if they do not get it. When their stomach is on the benefit, mark and ground.

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How to teach a dog to play dead

Now that you have consistency down, this is how to teach your dog to play dead!

Ask your dog to rest. When comfortable, pets will favor one hip or the other. Take a look at which way their weight is leaning, then get a treat.

Hold the reward at your dog’s nose. Move it diagonally over the opposite shoulder from the weighted hip (i.e., if your dog’s weight is on their left hip, you will move the treat over your dog’s ideal shoulder).

As your dog leans backwards, mark and reward them. Repeat five times.

Pro-tip: In the beginning, ask your dog to lay on a soft surface so that rolling over feels less scary!

Repeat action step 2. from above, moving your hand from your dog’s nose diagonally over their shoulder. This time, do not mark and reward until they are all the way on their back. Practice a minimum of five times.

Issues, Proofing Behaviour and Patience

If your dog currently understands how to roll over, its natural inclination might be to go all the way over when you start to draw it to its side. This is a good time to get your remote control out to record the exact habits you want.

Tempt your dog onto its side with a treat, click your remote control immediately and give the dog a treat. If it tries to keep rolling over, step away for a minute. When your dog understands that the treat vanishes when it rolls totally over, it will probably stop doing that, and just offer the behavior that gets the reward.

You can show what you desire it to do instead if you are having trouble getting your dog to follow the reward so that it ends up lying on its side. Use the treat as a lure, and at the same time, you can very carefully push it onto its side. As quickly as the dog is in the appropriate position, click your clicker (or inform him “yes” or “great”) and offer it a reward.

If your dog jumps up from playing dead quicker than you want it to, you can train it to lie there longer. Instead of providing the dog a treat the minute it lies over on its side, wait a few seconds, and then give the treat.

Practice this a couple of times, and then add a few seconds. In this way, you can slowly include more time until your dog will rest and play dead for several minutes or more.

Chances are you have actually moved ahead too quickly if at any point in the training your dog makes more than two or three errors in a row. Go back an action or two and practice, and just when the dog succeeds at that step, start moving slowly ahead once again.

All pet dogs find out at a various rate. Keep training sessions positive and end the session if your dog seems disappointed, exhausted, or bored.