Dog trick......?

Question

If I make a hoop with my arms (to the side), how can I get my ACD to jump thru them? He has done Agility dog for most of life (he turns 2 in a couple months) and is very good at that...but now I wan't to teach him this. Any ideas???

Answer 1

You may want to get him use to going thru a normal hoop and give him a command each time he does it. This way you can start with the hoop on the ground and then as the dog becomes comfortable with it start to raise it up.
Reward your dog when he does the right thing with some liver treats or similar.
Then as your dog gets to the height of how tall you are start to put the hoop in front of your arms and give the same command, eventually get rid of th hoop.

Be patient once the dog loses interest your have reached your Quota for that training session try again after the dog has had a break. Do it several times a day and you will have your dog jumping through hoops in no time. Literally!!!
*Remember to always use a voice command as that way the dog has an association to the command*
Good luck

Answer 2

Oddly enough I decided to play with this the other day with my big dogs after seeing my trainer list it as a suggestion in February's Clean Run magazine. What I've started to do was to stick a bunch of hot dog pieces in my mouth, make a hoop with my arms, and then bend over so that my lower arm was touching the ground. When each of my dogs would come near my arms or sniff through it, I'd spit a piece of hot dog down in front of them to encourage them to continue through. By doing a couple rapid-fire spits, I got them all to go through my arm "hoop" pretty much right away.

I haven't gone to the next step yet, but what I intend to do from there is to do that for a few more sessions (couple minutes each) until they go through eagerly, then I will start to lift my "hoop" an inch at a time. I anticipate that I might have a challenge when I reach whatever height that they have to think about jumping rather than just stepping through, but I won't know until I get there.

I think the idea of teaching the dog to jump through the hula hoop first too, but you'd still have to repeat all of the steps above anyway since arms are extremely different to the dog than the hula hoop. Teaching the hoop first still might make the arms go much faster.

Good luck! That would make a cute trick at the end of an agility run.

Answer 3

With any trick, you have to find an award. Was does he like to play with, what is he willing to do anything for. Take that toy and first teach him to jump for it. Always reward when he does it right. Never scold for failing to do it wrong. Stop if you get frustrated. After you get him to jump for the toy, add a ring. Have someone else hold it. Sit him right in front of it. Hold the ring about 4 or 5 inches off of the ground. Call him through it. After he does this for several days, move it higher. Keep doing this until he does it as high as you want. Then you can start holding the ring, move it closer to your body each day. Then put an arm around it. After he does it with one arm, add the second. Soon you will be able to get rid of the ring. But remember, always reward, be happy.

Answer 4

He has to get used to this situation first. It's a slow process. Get him to hop over your arm. Just one arm out straight. Reward etc etc. Start bringing that arm further and further off the ground till you're able to stand up straight. Then make a LARGE hoop w/ your arms and after a while the dog will get used to that. Start closing the hoop. Eventually your hands will be touching, the dog will be trained to jump through.

Youll need a code word to do this "Jump, hoop, hop" something like that.

Good Luck

Answer 5

best would be to use two people, one to make the hoop and one to put the reward on the other side. Start with your arms on the ground and give the command, with reward each time, until you can get him to do it without the reward and only praise. Then start raising your arms.