Mastering Canine Rear-End Awareness: A Positive Reinforcement Guide

Welcome to November’s Positive Pet Training Blog Hop. This month’s theme is rear end awareness but any positive reinforcement training posts are always welcome in the hop. 

Many dogs don’t realize they have rear legs and that they can act independently of their front legs. Mr. N’s natural rear awareness is pretty good (my theory is that small dogs often have better body awareness because they’re so used to avoiding getting stepped on and avoiding obstacles) but dogs all benefit from heightened rear awareness. It makes them more coordinated, reduces the risk of injury and comes in handy for sports.

I’m perfectly aware of my rear end, thank you very much

So we do the following:

1. Step through a ladder without touching the rungs. So the next time you have a ladder out, practice with your dog! We don’t have one but I was helping a friend paint and borrowed it afterwards to test Mr. N.

2. Pivoting. Mr. N puts his front paws on an object and moves his hind legs around in a circle. This is still a work in progress.

3. Targeting with his back paws. I’ve been mainly using his K9 Fit Bone for this. He puts his back paws on the bone and his front paws on the ground.

4. Backing up. I taught Mr. N how to do this by putting two chairs together with a small gap and standing in front of it and rewarding for any moving backward.

5. Standing/sitting on tiny objects. I have Mr. N sit on small things (for him) and he has to figure out how to cram all four paws together.

December’s Blog Hop’s theme will be rewards during training. Hope you join us on December 1!