Training Your Dog For: "Feet Up"

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in the past was to teach a dog the "Feet Up" command. It has proved itself to be of benefit in so many ways. Whether needing to stand in the vet's surgery, or just cleaning your dog's belly and legs, it quickly pays to invest the small amount of time needed to train it.

My particular method is as follows:

Pick a surface of suitable height for the dog. In my GSD's case, the unused kitchen worktop proves to be the ideal height.

With two treats in hand, hold it above the surface until your dog naturally lifts its paws onto the surface. As it does so, say "Feet Up" and immediately reward with one of the treats.

With the same hand, bring it down to the floor and give a "down" or other suitable request to the dog. The dog will naturally follow your hand, as it's where the first treat just came from. The moment the feet touch the floor, reward and praise the dog in a low key manner.

After a few days of training this, start to hold the treat in your hand for longer durations of time. I find that the dog is more than happy to sit sniffing the hand with the treat in. If it struggles to stay focused, just start with more treats in the hand, and drip-feed them to the dog, every five seconds or so, to keep the dog focused.

Once you can get a good ten seconds or so, begin to stroke the dog's belly, and better still, if you have another person to hand, have them handle the dog around the back of the back legs, around the base of the tail, and other key areas. The dog will usually be so eager to get to the treat that it won't mind in the least.

If, on the other hand, the dog jumps down, don't give the reward, but instead issue your usual no-reward wording. In my case, it's a simple "nope", walk away, and try again in a few minutes time.

Obviously, for older dogs, or any dog where the limbs and joints may not be as strong or as agile as they once were, this command should be avoided as it may put undue stress on the joints.

I bet the OH is not pleased you teaching the dog to dirty the clean worktops! (ps you could always try 'roll-over' if you fancy an easier way to inspect her tummy).

I started out by trying to teach Kali to look his best at the local shows (agricultural, nae very high-falutin" ) - I used the command "Stand!", which gets him to stand tall with tail level with his back. Not only does it work at shows ( he's retired now), but it works a treat at the vet's!

hehe I use a part of the worktop that's only used to stand a plant on usually. Otherwise, I wouldn't be flavour of the month by far.

Max learnt "feet up" all by himself
He uses it do drag stuff off the worktops...

He did it for the vet no problem though, so it must be a good thing!