How to Teach Your Dog to Weave Through Your Legs.
Training your dog to do a variety of tricks is both fun for you and provides your dog with important mental exercise, as well as strengthening the bond between you. Teaching your dog to weave through your legs is an easy and fun trick – a sure crowd pleaser among friends and family. Read our Holidays4Dogs article to find out how to do it.
Teaching the weave gets your dog to focus on you and your body language and, while it also stimulates them mentally – it gives them a good body workout too.
To start you will need lots of tasty treats. Liver, chicken, or, cheese are excellent motivators. If your dog isn’t very interested in food, try using a toy instead.
Start with your dog on the left side and take a step with your right leg, so you have a space for your dog to go through.
Have a treat in your right hand, held behind your leg, and lure your dog through your legs to the right.
Once they have moved through your legs, mark this by either using a word, (such as “good”), or your clicker. (For tips on how to get started with the clicker, see our other Holidays4Dogs article in the training section).
Next, have your dog on the right side. Take a step with your left leg and use your left hand holding a treat, to guide your dog through. To begin with, don’t move too much ahead.
Stay – more or less – on the spot and think of the movement as a figure of eight. As your dog gets the hang of it, begin to step forward.
Keep practicing until you can take a few steps forward with your dog waking through your legs, to the left and right.
After lots of repetitions where you can see your dog is getting the hang of it – take two steps, three steps, four steps, etc. before rewarding your dog with a treat. If your dog seems confused – go back a few steps and reward every time.
Once he is reliably weaving you can begin to use a cue word – such as “through”, or “weave”, for example.
As you practice, try to fade out the hand movement so that your dog is relying on the movement of your leg as a cue to move through.
If your dog has difficulty or just won’t focus; try teaching him to ‘target’ your hand first. You can find details of how to go about this in another of our Holidays4Dogs articles. With some patience and consistency, you could have your dog doing a basic weave in a matter of a few minutes!
Always make sure you and your dog are having fun. If you become frustrated – stop and have a go another day.
Happy training!
