I’m no professional dog trainer but, an average person that knows the easy technique to teach any of my dogs how to rollover within a matter of two weeks. Friends are amazed when I call my dog and I tell her to rollover and she does what I command but, I always reward her for an amazing little performance
I have been teaching the rollover technique to my dogs for the last thirty years when my mother told me to teach our Border Collie how to rollover and I told my mother something like Yeah Right how do you do something that is so complicated like that. She said watch me so, I watched her very closely to learn how to do it on my own but, I still wasn’t sure that it was going to pan out in the long run.
After few minutes she was done showing me and it was my turn to practice what she showed me and by the time I was done it seem like our Border Collie was already getting the hang of it on the first lesson.(WOW) So, after that first day I was committed to teaching that same technique at least once day for nearly two weeks.
Why I did quit after two weeks was because, I could not make that Border Collie do any better performance than she was already doing and I was very happy that my dog understood what I teaching to him very well and in very short time. Anytime you wanted that dog to show-off we would grab some kind of treat usually some left-over table scraps and hold it in my right hand and twirl it circular motion while saying rollover all at same time. My dog would commence to rolling over time after time but, no more than three times and my pooch was given his treat for a job well done.
The second dog that I taught was my Alaskan Spitz and her name was Shasha and she learned to roller-over as quickly as the Border Collie but, I did not ever think about training two different dogs that I had the same time. We enjoyed Shasha and her great abilities to roll-over talent and her long life as our beloved pet that lived about 20 human years.
My third dog is a Rat Terrier that I have right now and her name is Starr named by my wife for having a star looking shape right on her nose when she was a pup. As you probably know that these are hyper dogs and she does get a little carried away when she wants a treat and sometime her roll-over turns into craziness dance but, we love her because, we know that she has over abundance of energy that she don’t ever get to completely burn up around our home.
The whole technique of learning your dog to roll-over is very easy and by starting out with you having some likeable treat then get down your knees with the dog right in front of you begging for the treat. Preferably hold the treat in your left hand just high for the dog not to be able to reach the treat and with your right hand gently hold down on back of the neck and top of shoulders region to keep the dog in one general location. Then with the left hand start drawing a fairly big imaginary circle around the dog head still maintaining barely out reach. Just teasing your poor dog to death and be sure the dog follows the treat completely with their head and always gradually drop the treat lower to the ground as you proceed.
Helping them a bit by getting them on their side and getting their head to follow the treat in the roll-over direction is the difficult part of the technique. You may need to help them roll the first several times but, always rewarding them after about two times. It much easier than what its sounds because, dogs love a special treat and they will chase whatever they want to extreme measures to get what they are after. Its nice to have a good trick for your dog to show- off in from others so, when you get chance show your dog how easy is rollover it will be worth the small effort.
