How do you teach this?

[Bullet87]

Silly question, but my friend and I were talking about goofy dog tricks. (Have to keep both our minds and the dogs minds busy over the winter that never ends... ) But she asked how I would train my BC to hike his leg up and act like he was peeing on something. I told her I had no idea. Anyone here train the "movie tricks" like hiking a leg up to appear as if they are going potty?

 

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I have no idea, but if you search 'Dazzle' on YouTube KatsDogs taught her dog Dazzle to do this I think... there might be a video on how she did it?

[Root Beer]

I hate that trick, personally, not that you asked my opinion. :lol:

 

Anyway, if I were going to teach it, I would probably teach a back paw target, much like I do with the front paw. If the dog didn't mind having me pick up his back foot, I would probably pick it up, hold it for a second, click, treat, drop it. Repeat for a few sessions and then see if I could get him to offer it by picking it up once, click/treat, drop, and then wait to see if he would offer handing me the back paw. If that worked, then I would continue until the dog were offering me the back paw readily and then put a cue to it like "leg" (or whatever). Once the dog could consistently hand me the back leg on cue, I would cue leg, hold my hand out but pull it away before the dog could get the foot to it, click the raise, treat. I would repeat a few times, sometimes allowing the touch and sometimes moving away beforehand. And we would practice that until the raise were consistent, and there you go.

 

If you needed the lift to be higher, you could always raise the height of your hand to get higher lift. You could also train the entire thing with a target stick instead of your hand.

 

With a dog who would not allow me to lift the back paw willingly, or for a dog that did not get the idea of offering the paw that way (I've successfully done this with two dogs with the front paws, but it did not work for two others), then I would shape a back foot touch to a board behind the dog and once that was consistent and on cue, substitute a target stick for the board on the ground. Once that was consistent, I would hold it up and get the paw touch, and then do what I did above from that point.

 

I would expect that teaching a back paw lift on cue as a trick would require quite a lot of repetition.

[Ninso]

My girl dog knows that one! (Sort of. It's not on cue, but she will do the behavior.) I first shaped her to put both back feet on an object and then raised the height. Then since she generally lifted up one leg then the other onto the object, I started clicking after she got the first leg up. I think it's a hilarious trick!

[Emma H]

I taught my boy "7" this trick using the following steps. First, he had a LOT of hind-end awareness after being taught a number of tricks with his rear paws. He does a hand-stand on the wall, rear foot targets, backs up stairs and we've started a rear foot limp. I started with an agility jump standard. It's 7's default to offer rear foot targeting so when he lifted his leg to try and target the jump I clicked right away. You need to use something that the dog cannot easily get his paw onto. If I'd used something more solid he would have quickly started touching his foot to the object and it would be harder to get the foot-held-in-the-air behaviour. I started out using his right leg but after several sessions I was unable to get him to hike that leg up in a peeing stance. He would always just lift the leg underneath himself and hold it in the air. I decided to try his other leg (left) and in the first session I got beautiful, high lifts right away. I think it's because the left is the leg he ALWAYS lifts when he's peeing so the muscle memory was there

[MicheleS.]

Taught this to Chase much like Ninso explained. He did also have alot rear-end awareness training prior to teaching this. Gets alot of laughs and he loves the laughs so he offers it all the time.

He is starting to offer it when practicing the obedience go-out, as he knows to turn and sit after a paw touch on the stanchion. Sometimes he remembers he forgot to paw touch the stanchion and doesn't want to take his eyes off me so he backs up and lifts his back leg on the stanchion. I'm pretty sure an obedience judge wouldn't think that was too funny (Obviously I do.)

Taught this to Gypsy, my female, but she's not as good at it