If you are wondering how to teach your dog how to roll over, then you are in the right place.
Being a dog myself, I can help give you tricks and tips on how to train your dog to be as clever as me.
After all, I’m a labrador retriever, and we are trained to help our humans in many ways, so you could say I’m a paw-fessional.
Teaching your pup how to roll over should not be that hard, especially if you have a good boy, like me.
Most dogs will do whatever you ask us to, in exchange for treats, love, pats and kisses. But especially treats. My human tells me it’s all about paw-sitive reinforcement, but I just think the treats taste good.
Ulti-mutt-ly, the only difficult part about the roll over, is that it takes three different steps. So, your doggie must be able to sit, and lie down, before you try to master this one.
How to teach a dog to roll over
If you’re ready to teach your dog how to roll over, then let’s get started. The roll over is an impressive trick to show your friends, as this one always seems to make the humans very happy.
For this trick, you will have to have a large treat bag. Trust me, I know what I’m barking about. With a treat in your hand, ask your furry friend to sit. If they do, tell them that they are a good boy, or girl, and give them the treat, or a rub on the head.
Once this step is done, ask them to perform a down position, or a lie down, depending on which command you have used for this action in the past. Again, tell them that they are good. This part is very, very important to us.
Next, you will need to kneel down beside us as we are lying down. Then, we will need you to have another delicious, yummy treat in your hands. Or two, or four. I don’t make the rules.
With your scrummy treats at the ready, you will need to hold it to the side of your dog’s head, near the nose. As they move their head towards the treat to come and get it, you will need to move your hand a little further away slowly, so that it is closer to their shoulder.
This will make your furry friend have to lie flat on their side, so that their snoot can sniff out and reach for the treats.
You will need to repeat this movement a few times, and you should reward them for rolling onto their side from the down position. Keep repeating this, and tell us how clever we are, and give us the treat every time we do it right.
Once your doggie has paw-fected this, you will need to do it again, but this time, continue moving your hand, with the treats in it, once the dog is lying flat, from their shoulder to their backbone.
This should make them roll onto their back naturally. If they do this, then make sure that you move your hand with the treat further, until your furry friend rolls onto its other side.
When your dog has rolled completely over on their back and to the other side, you can start adding the command roll over, so that we know what this is.
Then, you will need to repeat the motion and the action a few times, with the help of a treat, over and over again, until your dog understands that the roll over is what you want them to do.
Because your furry friend loves you so, so much, they should pick it up quickly, and start doing the action of the roll over, so that they can please you (and get the treat). Once your doggie seems to have pet-tentially perfected this motion, you can start just using the cue roll over to try and get them to do it.
The most important thing to remember when you are teaching us new tricks is that we are trying our best to do what you want. There is a language barrier, and we do not know what type of bork you speak, so we respond to your body language instead.
This means that we love being fussed, rubbed, patted or given treats, and this will help us understand that we are doing a good job in pleasing you, so keep doing this throughout the whole training process, and we will get there in the end!
What is the best age to teach a dog tricks?
You can teach us to do tricks from a very young age. As dogs, we like to please you, but most importantly, we will do anything in exchange for treats. Or kibbles. Or belly rubs.
You could actually teach a small puppy as young as seven or eight weeks old basic commands like sit, stay or down.
Sometimes, if you want your pup to be as well behaved and mannered as I am, then you will have to start implementing some tricks and training from the start.
However, you would be barking mad to try to teach them advanced tricks at that age, as they do not have a long attention span.
I would say, the best time to start teaching tricks and advanced training is from 6 months old. Just make sure you have a rucksack full of treats, and we will do whatever you say.
Summary
To summarise, it is not too difficult to teach your dog to roll over.
All you have to do is get them to sit, lie down, and then use treats, or kibbles to coax us into rolling onto our sides, and backs into a roll over motion.
With lots of praise, belly rubs and kibbles, you can teach your doggie this trick in no time!
