Shaping a Pivot

Dog in a box

Jane brought Finn, my God dog, to visit and show off his box trick. For a clicker class that Jane is taking, she shaped Finn to drive to a box, leap in and lie down. He worked his trick with joy and enthusiasm.

Red Goes Around

Lynnda uses Red and then Java to show how to teach a distance exercise. It is easily to teach your dog to work reliably at a distance. It is also one of life's necessities.

Lynnda shaped Red to go near the cone – click for being near it, for looking at it, for walking toward it, etc – AND she lured Red into position by tossing each treat further along the path she wanted him to take.


This was Red's first work on the cone exercise and he got it fairly quickly. Lynnda doesn't know him well enough yet to see then he is over loading and getting ready to zoom. He did manage to get two laps around the ring in before she could get him back.

Dogs are far better at shaping people than people are at shaping
dogs. -- Susan Garrett