Play Bow On Cue

[GSDGirl]

Hi everybody, I'm getting a German Shepherd pup in two weeks, so this question won't be relevant for a little while, but would it be possible to train a dog to play bow on cue, perhaps as a hello? I'm thinking clicker training might work but I don't want her to lose the fun of doing it naturally as well.

Any suggestions/comments?

[Dxenion]

I imagine there are many ways to teach it but this is the method I used:

Have the dog stand side on in front of you.

Place one hand lightly under their belly back towards the groin. Your belly hand is only there to stop the back end of the dog from laying down.

Using a high value treat in the other hand, lure the dog's nose down towards the ground between it's front legs.

The dog's front end will collapse into the bow position as it follows the treat. For the first repetition, reward the slightest front end downward move. With further repetitions, reward more exagerated downward moves until the front end is bowing under support.

Repeat the process, slowly taking away the belly hand until the dog is bowing at the front and the back end is standing without support.

Once the dog is doing this reliably, then you can add a cue. You might find that by this stage the dog may have already associated the downward motion of the treat hand as a hand signal.

[Kavik]

I've trained a bowwith 2 dogs, using different methods.

I used the method Dxenion used with the first dog. With the next dog I shaped it with a clicker, starting with marking the head going down.

[GSDGirl]

Cheers for your answers Could I also clicker it whenever she does it naturally?

[Dxenion]

Could I also clicker it whenever she does it naturally?

Certainly, the only difficulty is in creating enough situations where she will do it naturally so you can click/ treat. I have one pup here that play bowed naturally but when I C/Ted, it broke his initiation of that behaviour and he then focussed his attention on me instead (why play with other dogs when the human has treats - even low value ones!). It wasn't easy to recreate the stimulus for the bow so he would naturally offer it again, I had to wait until the next time he did it.

It's a much slower method and one problem that can develop is if down the track, you do manage to attach a cue and later she forgets, you may have difficulty reshaping the behaviour as it wasn't something you shaped in the first place (ie the behaviour occured from a stimulus not created by you and may be difficult for you to replicate).

In the method I mentioned, I shaped the downward head movement but instead of a C/T (my hands were full) I replaced the click with a word that I'd previously charged. Same effect. Slight head down (W/T), next repetition head further down (W/T) and so on. It only took 2 days over numerous 2-3 minute sessions and I had a bow behaviour on a hand cue that he was able to perform at a public event just a few days later.

I tried the capture method on one dog and the lure shaping on another at the same time to compare the two methods. Lure shaping was definitely faster. I did discover that by getting the lure shaped dog to bow, the capture method dog would bow in response and I could W/T that. Down the track, I noticed that the capture method dog would bow when given the same hand signal I used for the lure shaped one, even though I hadn't taught the hand signal to the capture method dog. I believe this is known as a precusor signal ie pup watches another dog bow (so he bows in response) and both get a treat, pup starts noticing the hand signal leads to the bow and treat, pup starts reacting to the hand signal which leads to the bow and treat, pup sees hand signal - bows and gets a treat.

[koalathebear]

My dog's 'bow' that I taught him is quite different from his natural play bow. The 'bow' is a bit like the one you see horses do where they bend their front legs and stick their butt in the air. The 'natural' play bow is very lively and bouncy with tail wagging, a spring and a bit of a bark sometimes

[lovemesideways]

Video I made on how to do this

[GSDGirl]

Awesome replies everybody and dxenion, thank you for the comparison I'll post with progress once me and my pup have the basics down - don't know how long that will take

Has anyone used Kyra Sundance's 51 puppy tricks book? It's in the mail after I got a copy from the library and I thought that in theory, it looked like a good book