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Tricks to Teach Your Dog: Push-Ups

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Tricks to Teach Your Dog: Push-Ups

Foundational training cues like “sit”, “come” and “stay” are immensely important to your dog’s training journey. Knowing how to respond appropriately not only builds polite behaviors but can keep your dog safe in certain situations.

However, sometimes it’s just fun to expand your dog’s repertoire of learned behaviors by adding a cool trick your dog can perform. And of course, it’s fun to show off all your dog’s tricks, but the added benefit is that continually teaching them new behaviors and cues further establishes and builds upon the trust and bond you have between each other.

So if you’re ready to teach your dog a new trick, try push-ups!

How to Teach Your Dog Push-ups

In order to be successful, your dog must already know sit and down.

Goal: Your dog moves from sit to down and back up to sit multiple times without taking any steps in between.

Suggested verbal cues: "Sit" and "down" cues (verbal or hand) in succession or "push-ups" for single cue.

Note: Limit repetitions of the trick with older dogs, giant breeds and any dog who has  hip or joint issues of any kind.

Steps to teaching your dog push-ups

There are three main ways to teach your dog a new trick:

  • Shaping: This process is used for complex behaviors and works well to teach dogs behaviors they don’t usually offer spontaneously
  • Capturing: This is when you wait for your dog to perform a desired behavior without giving any type of prompt, then use a reward to reinforce and encourage a repeat of the behavior.
  • Luring: This uses a prompt (like a treat or toy) to guide your dog to a specific behavior. Your dog’s nose, and subsequently their body, follows the prompt and the behavior is performed.

While you may find your dog typically responds best to one training style, sometimes a different behavior will require a different approach.

Tricks to Teach Your Dog: Push-Ups

Shaping Approach to Teaching Your Dog Push-ups

  1. Start with your dog in the down position.
  2. Verbally praise and reward any lifting of their head or body toward a sit.
  3. Continue shaping the behavior until your dog lifts into a full sitting position.Verbally praise them and offer a high-value treat.
  4. Return your dog to down.
  5. Repeat the steps until your dog lifts into sit almost immediately.
  6. To reinforce the trick, move to a different area and repeat steps 1-5.
  7. Continue shaping sit from down and down from sit until your dog is reliably moving from one to the other almost continuously.
  8. Add the verbal cue “push-up” to mark the desired behavior.
  9. When finished, release your dog with “go play” or their release cue.

Capturing Approach to Teaching Your Dog Push-ups

  1. Cue your dog to go to their down position.
  2. Verbally praise and reward when it’s performed.
  3. Wait. Most dogs will eventually pop up into a sit from the down position. When they do, verbally mark the behavior and reward.
  4. Cue for down again, mark and reward when performed.
  5. Wait again, mark and reward when your dog pops back into a sit.
  6. Once your dog is reliably completing the down and then popping up into a sit, stop cueing the down and wait to see if the dog offers it. If they do, mark and reward, then wait for them  to pop up into a sit. Mark and reward the sit.
  7. Once your dog is reliably downing then sitting, begin phasing out the reward for down.
  8. When your dog continues to go into down and sit for a single reward, move a few steps away.
  9. If your dog follows and sits in front of you, mark and reward.
  10. Wait. If your dog offers down and sit, mark and give a reward.
  11. Repeat steps 8-10 until your dog reliably performs the behavior.
  12. Move a few feet away.
  13. When your dog moves to you and sits, withhold the mark and wait for a full sit-down-sit movement. When this occurs, mark and reward.
  14. Continue to practice withholding the verbal mark after the first sit-down-sit to see if your dog will offer another down-sit repetition. When they do, mark and reward.
  15. Once the behavior is given continually, add the verbal cue “push-up.”
  16. When finished, release your dog with “go play” or their release cue.

Luring Approach to Teachng Your Dog Push-ups

  1. Use your lure (or treat) to have your dog sit.
  2. Lure them to the down position.
  3. Praise and reward the behavior.
  4. Give your dog their down cue and lure them to a sit.
  5. Mark and reward when they lift up into a sit.
  6. Continue practicing steps 1-5.
  7. Add verbal cue “push-up” to mark the desired behavior.
  8. When finished, release your dog with “go play” or their release cue.

Once your dog has mastered the push-up post a video on social media and tag us using #Petco and @Petco. Then move on to more fun tricks like teaching your dog to shake!

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