Trick of the week: Ride a skateboard!

This week's trick has to do with movement. Getting your dog used to standing on or manipulating a moving object can be a great confidence booster as well as teaching the dog to have control of their body. Depending on the trick, you can also increase your dog's core strength.

Option 1: Ride a skateboard
The ideal with this is to train your dog to keep three paws on the skateboard and push with the fourth. Obviously any variation is acceptable!

Option 2: Push a ball
Here we want your dog to have either their two front paws or two rear paws on a ball and to roll it with their other paws. No nose pushes, we want the dog to be somehow on the object as it moves.

Option 3: Push a stroller
Same as above, two front paws on the stroller and walking with their back.

As always, any variation of the above tricks are fantastic, get creative!

Ready... Set... Go!

This means I need to go buy a skateboard... for my dog... that's a whole 'nother level of nerddom right there. I've been looking forward to the new TOTW thread!

Only surpassed by the nerd level of those of us who already HAVE a skateboard... for our dogs...

This one should be fun!

Ha! This! I can't buy a stroller so maybe we can work on the skateboard we have.

This one I may actually be able to do.....maybe I will break out the furniture dolly and see if I can get Ivy to "ride" it.

Crap, I don't have any of those things! I may have to improvise...

Haha I've been googling for used sports equipment stores since this was posted. I do have a Radio Flyer wagon I might use instead.

I love this idea for a trick!! And I totally have a skateboard

It's hilarious that every trick of the week is something that I've just taught or currently working on

ETA I'll try to get some "starting point" skateboard vid tonight

So, we have tried this in the past and Backup will both push with two feet and stand three feet on a board but pushing with one and standing with three has never been achieved, we haven't spent a ton of time on it but are there any tips? Just shape it?

I may have just purchased a spiderman skateboard from a garage sale.

Maybe jam the wheels so it doesn't move, then train him to use it as a platform before anything else.

When it can't move he has the form, I'm just not sure how to transition, with three on with it sliding at all he either pops four on and rides for a second before bailing or nails immediately.

I would probably focus a lot on reward placement and maybe starting out on carpet or something so it has less movement. Sometimes when a dog is throwing out a lot of behaviours one after another I'll toss in additional cues like "stay" "hold it" etc, to help bridge some of the learning.

This.

I started to teach this to Zinga when she was a pup and it helped tremendously to practice on flooring that inhibited the movement a little bit. I think that way they don't feel so inclined to keep more control by placing more feet on the ground. At least that's my theory. LOL

I don't know if I can find a skateboard big enough for Squashies. And I'm 99.9% sure he is the only one who wouldn't be freaked out by this.

Maisy can do a back stall, there for Maisy can do a skateboard.

Thanks, we'll try carpet.... I have none in my house nor work. Grass? We'll try grass!

That's why there are more than one option. Find a ball! You can't use the "my dog is big" excuse....

http://www.tahoelongboards.com/Tahoe_Longboards/Board_Shop.html


Maybe post on craigslist and see if anybody has a longboard they want to get rid of?

Siri will run and jump on a skateboard, it's adorable! But I don't have a skateboard, we learned this at puppy class!