So, I spent a little time, just a few minutes, working on HOW I might teach Lilly to wag her tail on cue. We’ll have to keep working on it, but I plan to treat the the wag / no wag a bit like an on / off switch. Here is my 5-step plan for teaching this dog trick.
Step 1: Get Lilly into a neutral body position
Clicker-savvy dogs like Lilly frequently “throw behaviors at you” as they try to figure out what you’re rewarding today. So, to speed things up, I wanted to eliminate behavior options that Lilly likely associates with standing up. Asking her for a DOWN seemed to do the trick … even though she knows many dog tricks that begin with a down, including:
- CHIN (put your chin on your paws or the floor)
- CRAWL (crawl across the ground, keeping your body low)
- ROLL OVER (the usual meaning)
Step 2: Get Lilly to wag
From there, I waited her out as she offered a few behaviors that I ignored. Lilly finds clicker training pretty fun and exciting, so her tail was wagging to beat the band — swinging quickly across the ground. I just started clicking and treating her for tail movement. At this point, I wasn’t convinced she knew what was what.
Step 3: Get Lilly NOT to wag
So, I used our normal WAIT cue to see if I could get Lilly NOT to wag for a few seconds so that I could then reward when the wagging started again (hoping she would catch on faster).
Step 4: Add in the the word WAG
When her tail got going again and again, I’d say WAG, then click/treat her for wagging. I tend to be too quick on adding in verbal cues, so stick with me.
Step 5: Alternate WAIT with WAG
Then, I asked Lilly to WAIT (which I noted with our marker word YES), and I asked her to WAG (which I marked with a click and a piece of cheese).
Dog Trick: Wagging on Cue … Results
We only practiced for a few minutes one afternoon because this kind of dog training is hard for dogs (mentally taxing, I mean) and because I ONLY had a few minutes, but I did indeed get Lilly to STOP wagging and START wagging several times on cue.
We’ll keep at it, and when I think it’s funny and cute enough, I’ll shoot some video to share.
That must be a very tough one to train because it seems so unconscious for a dog.
For us, I’ve noticed that our dog R seems to believe that wagging makes his Mannersminder produce treats. Maybe I could train it that way…
Sounds like it’s going great!!! I would keep doing what you are doing and not raise the criteria yet. She’s clicker-savvy — you know she will catch on quickly. I would also be tempted to click/treat the captured behavior of wagging in other positions and environments.