Help Training Rear End Awareness

[Heidii]

Am in agility classes at the moment training rear end awareness. I was told by my instructor that to train him i need to wait for him to offer the movement of actually putting his front feet on the square board and then once he can do this i need to wait for him to offer the movement of his rear (of corse rewarding when done right)....is this how it should be done? Shouldnt I give a command? Im a lil confused, if anyone could offer some advice it would be great!

[laffi]

Do you use a clicker?

This is what I did with my golden ages ago:

The easiest would be to clicker train it. C&T for paw on the the square board and then C&T for any back paw movement.

ETA I don't have a cue/command for this behavior.

Edited February 10, 2009 by laffi

[Vickie]

As Laffi said, I would not use a command. In fact I pretty much never use a command until a behaviour is taught. At this point a command will mean nothing as there is no reliable behaviour to pair it to.

Some dogs will offer movement on thir own, some won't. If no movement is being offered, you may need to lure a little bit. I find some dogs are uncomfortable in this position & exercise.

There are other ways (that I prefer) to teach rear end awareness as well.

Teach him to walk backwards on command. For some dogs this is as simple as having them stand in front of you & walking towards them. Some will naturally step back. Others will naturally sit...or let you run into them. Again, luring can be useful. Some people prefer to create a barrier of use a hallway so the dog has no option but to move back.

Another one I like for agility that we did at Ronda Carter's seminar last year is to have a VERY low jump & ask your dog to step over it. Dogs with little or no back end awareness will often hit or touch it with their back legs. Each attempt where they do not touch it is rewarded, each where they do touch it is ignored. The dogs pick up very quickly that you don't want them to touch it & are therefore more careful with their back feet.

Another is to teach them to a touch a target with a back foot, this is generally fairly easy if they are clicker savvy.

Edited February 10, 2009 by Vickie

[Kavik]

I did this with Kaos. The only problem I had was that it interfered with my contact training later, he wanted to try to pivot to move around the board instead of walking over it

I also have a ladder and walk my guys over the ladder, so they have to walk between the rungs.

[leopuppy04]

I also wouldn't cue it... but you need to break it down into teeny tiny steps. Your placement of reward will also help you with your success too. To keep the dogs interest you need to have a VERY high rate of reinforcement and short sessions - when you want to do one more... STOP!

*Remember to reward any behaviour orientated towards the plank - ie: looking at it, stepping toward it, scratching it pawing it.... at this point, I would be placing the reward as close as possible to the plank. You shouldn't point at it, command it or anything

*Keep rewarding in small increments until your dog reliably puts his front paws on the plank. When he does this, I would start throwing the reward (sizeable chunks, so that he can see it and come charging back) behind him... this gives him the opportunity to offer you the behaviour again.

*Once he is reliably doing this I would throw the food behind and a little to one side. If you know whether your dog is 'left or right pawd' I woudl throw to the favoured side.... what you should have been aiming at before is a STRAIGHT stand in front of you... so therefore as the dog comes in from the slight angle they *should* rotate their rear legs in order to stand straight in front of you.... CLICK THE REAR MOVEMENT. If the dog doesn't understand to stand straight - reward once with food while they are straight infront, then throw another piece behind to set them up again.

* To graduate from this - you should then take a step to the side and the dog (because he want's to remain straight with you) will swing their rear around... click the rear movement again. Your dog should be able to do this both ways

Unlike others here - I added a cue ("Step") simply because I didn't want the behaviour to occur eg: when I was teaching heeling or fronts etc... . Mine never offered it in contacts, because I was never standing infront of them (my body positional cue) to get them to offer it.

Hope this helps

Edited February 10, 2009 by leopuppy04

[smisch]

I was just thinking about this! Great topic Heidii, Jock is driving me isane with his new bad habit of bar knocking...

Another one that I was working with which Im not sure if it is a correct method but we did have some improvement was I set up three low jumps with room for either the front feet or back feet in between and I had jock running in between them, and slowly I then raised the bars making him step higher (obviously the taller the dog is the higher the bar can go.)