Emmett has an extremely solid default sit. Early on, we taught him to sit at the door, sit for his food, sit for a treat, sit, sit, sit. It’s a wonderful default behavior. It’s reliable to the extent that when he’s out doing his therapy work, I can count on him having his butt parked whenever I need it. Especially when he’s hungry:
However.
The solidity of his default means that every time I try to teach him something new, I need to get him past sitting and into the trick or behavior, which adds an extra layer to our training, but it hasn’t been a problem.
Until now.
I want to teach him to back up. I don’t actually have a necessity for him to learn to back up. I just like to add something new every few weeks, I decided it would be back up, and now… he absolutely will not do it.
Luring him with a treat doesn’t work. He sits.
Stepping toward him to guide/shape doesn’t work. He sits.
Even positioning him between the sofa and ottoman doesn’t work. He has no direction to go BUT back. But he still sits.
So I’m throwing this out to you, this fabulous community of dog lovers, experts, trainers. Any troubleshooting tips? How can I teach my dog to back up?
On another note, I dog sat Stanley again yesterday, and I just can’t get over how cute it is to have a little dog wedged in with my big boys!
I taught my dogs to back up by physically pushing them backwards with my free hand (other one held the treat). At first they would hardly move so I’d give them a treat when I’d push on their chest and then it went from there.
My one dog (Mickey) is pretty smart so he got it right away, but I had to physically move my other one (Kayloo) for quite awhile before she got it.
Let us know how it goes!
I may have to give that a try… I’m definitely starting to get frustrated, which is not good for teaching a new behavior! I think we’re going to need to start from the beginning this weekend.
I’ve had dog envy on several different occasions watching people with dogs that back up. Maggie isn’t so keene on this move. In fact, while she’ll do just about anything else I ask of her, she sits and looks at me as if I’m crazy when I try to get her to back up. I do, however, have a plan. For the last few weeks I’ve been catching Maggie when she does a play bow and rewarding her. First just a reward, now I’m pairing that reward with the command bow. Watching her back up the other day when she was stuck in a corner after chasing the cats it dawned on me that I could do the same thing with backing up. This is going to be slow. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to catch her spontaneously backing up. I think with patience I’ll get her walking backward.
This is a great tip, Jason. I love the idea of waiting to capture the behavior… and I have noticed that Emmett backs up on his own when we’re playing fetch. As soon as I get ready to toss the toy, he starts stepping backwards in the direction he’ll run to chase it down. I think I’ll try capturing it with the clicker at that point. Thanks for the tip!
You could tell people how I shuffle with one leg under Emmett’s stomach, the other foot in front of him, and a treat above his nose, while hopping toward him and saying “back!”. Now that I’m actually writing it, I see how it’s probably not the most effective method.
I did fail to mention in the post, btw, that Lucas mastered this in one session!
I hope the tip works for you! I get so much joy catching my dog Maggie doing parts of things I’d like to teach her. It’s slow work, but very rewarding…. and how great you’ve always got your clicker at hand. I usually have one around my wrists at all times, just in case Maggie does something I want to mark.