how to teach play dead?????????

[Guest Anonymous]

I have a one year old border collie that i took to doggie school she can do all basics and roll over and speak but, i can't teach her to play dead.

[corgilady]

How did you teach her to do the other tricks? have you ever tried using a clicker?

[Guest Anonymous]

I used treats but she won't play dead even with treats or a clicker.

[DogPaddle]

Does your dog roll onto his/her back to have his/her belly scratched?
If/When it does this say "Play dead!" or "Bang your dead!" Enough repatitions and the dog should roll on its back when the command is given.

[Guest Anonymous]

Try this... :)
First, teach your dog to roll on her back and stay there instead of rolling all the way over. You can say "play dead", or whatever you like when you first get her in that position. If she seems uncomfortable in the position(on her back), then don't force her to stay there, but just rub her belly. She should start to get fairly comfortable in the position after a few tries. Then start giving her the command "play dead" and helping her to roll over(and stop her before she rolls all the way over if she does try to), and click & treat only when she's on her back like you want her. Now, after doing this a few times, she should be figuring out that that's the position you want her in. Now, when she's finally doing this on command, you can start switching over to the hand signal(if you want). You know, like the finger gun. ;) Just do that whenever you give the command. Pretty soon(after a couple days), you can start leaving out the command and just doing the hand signal. Hope this works for you! :)

BTW, don't do this for very long at a time. Maybe for about 10 minutes a session, then play for a while. It's not a natural thing for a dog to do, like sit or down, and they might get a little frustrated if you do it excessively. It took my Doberman, Toby, a whole week to even get started staying on his back(he was pretty stuborn). But he caught on to the hand signal really easily.