- Roll over.
Yes! Good girl.
In today's video, I'm gonna show you
how to teach your dog to roll over.
I'm also gonna talk about a few common challenges
that people face while teaching this trick.
My name is Kayl McCann, this is Bee-Line,
welcome back to McCann Dogs.
(gentle music) (dog barking)
So we are gonna get started with this.
So I have Bee-Line's dinner with us,
which she is really excited about getting,
but I'm gonna work a little bit on the roll over
with a little bit of use of her dinner.
So I'm gonna grab a couple cookies here,
and I am going to start off simply by making sure
she can go into the down position.
So she's moving at mach speed here,
so we'll try to do it a little bit slower.
So I start with my hand on her nose.
I have the treats in my fingers here.
I'm gonna lure from her nose down to her toes,
to get her in the lying position.
So that's the easy part.
This next part's a little harder.
What I wanna do is get her lying
so that she's laying on her side.
So what I'm gonna do is lure her nose
towards her shoulder blades,
and hopefully encourage her to flip onto her side,
and as soon as she does that,
I'm gonna say, "Yes," to mark her correct behavior,
and then I'm gonna reward her.
Yes, good girl.
So not all the way quite over as much as I'd like her to be,
but we'll-- Yes!
Chip-- Yes!
We'll chip away at it here.
Yes!
Good girl, yes.
Okay, good girl, try that again.
So I'm turning her nose towards-- Yes.
You are very flexible.
I'm turning her nose towards her shoulder blades.
Yes, so I'm getting a little bit far away
from what I'm looking for, so I'm just gonna start again.
I'm not giving her the reward.
She's hungry, so she's frantic about the food right now.
Down. Yes, good girl.
So I'm gonna flip her over.
Yes! There! Good girl!
So because this dog is so excited right now,
what I'm learning very quickly
is my movements of my hands only need to be very subtle,
very small movements at a time.
Because she's so excited to get the food,
if I'm moving my hands all around,
she's just sort of flailing her body any which way.
So as I'm practicing this, I don't need to go for
the entire behavior right from the beginning,
in fact a lot of dogs are going to struggle with this,
so the best way to approach this
is by going in little increments.
So trying to get first her laying on her side.
Once I'm successful getting that reliably,
then I'm gonna see if I can get her
to flip a little bit further over
and then maybe to the entire roll from there.
So I'm gonna keep working on simply getting her
to go onto her side a little bit more,
'cause it's not quite reliable at this time.
So another thing that's important to talk about
is really learning which direction
your dog is going to be more comfortable rolling,
because your dog actually will be more coordinated
and comfortable turning one way to the other.
So one of the ways that you can figure that out is
lure your dog into a down position and (laughs)
see which way your dog naturally rolls onto the hip.
My dog is being a little bit nutso right now.
Just lie down for a sec.
So when I go to put the food on her nose,
she is sort of laying in what we call a sphinx position,
so if I turn her nose to the right,
she is slipping onto her side really easily.
Now let me see what happens if I turn her nose to the left.
Okay, so I'm getting her on her side,
so I might even be able to get a dog
that rolls both directions.
Yes!
So this might not happen with your dog, though.
When you try to the left and you try to the right,
one of those directions, your dog is going to
more easily flip onto that hip
and whatever hip they're laying on,
that's the direction you're gonna go.
Now the roll over trick is a pretty common trick
for our dogs, but for whatever reason,
I actually haven't taught this to Bee-Line quite yet.
Now it's pretty funny, I think she's starting
to really understand it, but we specifically
chose her for the demonstration today
because she's not that familiar with it.
So I'm hoping she's gonna make
some pretty normal, common mistakes, but let's see
how she does as I try to progress a bit further.
So I'm gonna lure her onto her side.
Yes! Good girl!
Good girl!
Now I will admit I actually have worked a little bit
on this particular behavior.
I will teach her an on your side trick, and I'll use that
so I can examine her, clip her toenails.
That type of thing has been really handy for the vet.
So this part we have worked on before,
we just haven't worked on progressing any further.
Now if I try to flip her towards me
how she's positioned right now,
she's just gonna hit me, so I'm gonna just try to change
my position a little bit so she has room to roll.
Yes!
Okay, so she's moving onto her side really easily.
So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take the food
and I'm gonna turn her head, so hopefully--
Yes! Good girl!
She just follows her body, follows her head over
and flips all the way.
That was a good girl, shall we try it again?
Oops, I'm gonna just push her bum away from me there
so she's in a better position.
Good girl.
Okay, so we're gonna turn the head
towards the, uh, what is this called?
The... shoulder! (laughs)
And then, yes...
Yes! Good girl!
Flip her the rest of the way.
I think you're gonna get this, missy!
So head to the shoulder, yes!
And turn the head all the way over.
Yes!
Okay, so she's following this really easily,
so now I'm gonna go ahead and
try to make this one solid motion
and see if she can figure it out.
Now I will say that you may notice
that I'm not using any commands at this point,
I'm not saying "Roll over".
The only thing I'm really saying is the word 'yes',
because when we're teaching the dog something new,
we first want to get the behavior understood
physically by the dog before we start giving commands,
because I don't want to say the word "Roll over"
and then have her do a bunch of different behaviors.
So until I get her going really reliably, I'm gonna
save the step of adding the command to a little bit later.
Alright, so I have a handful of treats,
we're gonna try this again.
So I get her down.
Yes! Good girl!
So I try it again.
Yes! Good girl!
So she's going really easily now.
Yes! (laughs)
So I think I probably can go ahead and add the word.
Now before I go on any further, I wanna talk about
some of the problems that may occur
when you're practicing with your dog.
Now having a dog lie on their back
or flip over on their back is not very comfortable
for all dogs, so you may want to first consider
the surface that you're practicing on.
So I'm practicing on matting with carpet on top,
so it's pretty comfortable to move around.
You may not want to start this
on your hardwood floor or your kitchen tile, for example,
because it's not very comfortable to flip over.
So start on something that's very soft and inviting,
that's the first tip that I would suggest.
And the second tip I have for you is,
be patient with your food.
It's very common for us to move our hands incorrectly
when we're first starting this, and typically
wherever we move our hand, our dog just happens to go
at the same time, so a common mistake that will happen--
Oh my gosh, you almost went there, good girl!
A common mistake that will happen
is that people will often lure their dog's head too high
and then the dog starts standing up
and then people end up feeding like I just did.
And if I do that too many times,
I'm gonna start getting further away from my ultimate goal,
so I'm gonna create a bit of a gray area for my dog,
because I'm feeding so many different things.
So if your dog happens to spiral out of position,
don't worry, simply withhold the food and try again.
And just try to reward smaller increments,
try to reward them for smaller behaviors at a time.
If they get out of position, you're just gonna stop that
particular attempt, and then simply start again.
Roll over.
Yay! That was a good one!
Down, good girl.
Roll over.
Yes! Good for you!
Lie down.
Roll over.
Yay! Good!
So you see now I'm able to say the word and then show her,
and because she's starting to get the hang of it,
my movement of the food to her shoulder
is becoming less and less and less each time.
Ready? Roll over.
Yeah! Good girl!
Now remember, as you're continuing
to get to the point where you want your dog
to do this on just a verbal command
without a hand signal, it's imperative
that you are isolating the word, the command, 'roll over',
whatever you're saying, apart from the hand signal.
So you need to first say the command
and then one second later, maneuver your dog into position.
If you're doing all of those steps at the same time,
your dog will start to depend on the hand movement
and they will not be able to do it just on the word alone,
so that's extremely important as you're moving forward.
Now if your dog is struggling, so as Bee is right now,
she's just gone so well through all the stages,
we're hitting a little bit of a bump here.
So what I'm gonna start to do,
is rather than take the signal away completely,
I'm going to try to wean off of the signal
so it's not so big.
I'm just gonna move as--
give her as much help as she needs
and then try to take some of it away.
So I've noticed that as I lure her nose towards her head,
once I get her started, she tends to be able
to do the rest on her own,
so that's as much as the signal I'm going to give her.
But again, keep in mind, watch my timing
and note that I'm saying the command first
and then I'm using that physical action to help her.
Roll over.
Yes! Good!
So rather than continuing my hand all the way
through the roll, I let her sort of finish
the behavior a bit more on her own.
(Laughs) Hold on, lie down.
Come closer, lie down. Good.
Roll over.
Almost.
Lie down.
Roll over.
Yes, good girl!
Okay. Lie down.
Roll over.
Yes, good girl!
Okay, lie down.
Roll over.
Yes! Good!
That was a bit more on your own.
Lie down.
Okay, roll over.
Yes!
Okay, here. Lie down.
Down.
Roll over.
Yes, good girl!
She's almost got this.
Okay, lie down.
Roll over.
Yay! Good!
Okay, lie down.
Roll over.
So close.
Lie down.
Come here, come here.
Lie down.
Roll over.
Lie down.
Roll over.
Yes!
So she tried two different behaviors
rather than the one that I was looking for
so I don't wanna keep letting her get
further and further away from the final goal,
so if I see she's struggling, I need to
get back in there with my hand signal.
So obviously I have a little bit of homework to do,
but hopefully you have an understanding
of how to actually progress to get to the part
where your dog can do this just on the command,
without needing the hand signal.
Now you may have noticed that as I was practicing,
Bee-Line was offering some different tricks,
like spinning and backing up.
Now if you'd like to teach those tricks to your dogs,
click the playlist beside me.
Now if this is your first time with us,
make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
We post brand new videos every single week to help you
to have a well-behaved four-legged family member.
And on that note, I'm Kayl McCann,
this is my border collie pup Bee-Line.
Bye for now. Happy training.