Chin rest is when your dog rests their chin on something of your choosing. For example your hand, leg, or a target. This behavior can be used as a way for your dog to communicate they are comfortable with what is happening. At BlueDog we start by showing you how to teach your dog to do a chin rest on your hand.
How to Teach:
- Hold one hand a few inches under your dog’s chin. Using treats in your other hand lure your dog’s head down so that their chin rests on your hand. When you can feel her chin on your hand, mark and feed the treat lower than your hand.
- Repeat until your dog is consistently following the lure of your hand with a treat in it.
- Next try luring with an empty hand (no treat). When you feel your dog’s chin rest in your hand, mark and feed low with a treat from your treat bag.
- If your dog raises their head after you mark, but before you give them the treat still feed the treat low so they are getting the treat while their chin is resting on your hand.
- Repeat step 3 until your dog is consistently following the lure of your empty hand.
- Now add duration.
- Lure her chin to your hand, mark with good, and then feed a treat low. Then pull your hand that gave the treat away from your dog. If your dog maintains the behavior of their chin on your hand, mark with good again and feed them another treat low. Repeat pulling your hand away, marking with good as long as your dog is maintaining contact with your hand, feeding low several more times.
- After your dog is successful with step 6 you can start increasing the time between when you say good. If you increase the time before you say good and your dog raises their chin it just means the time was a little too long and you need to back up to a shorter duration and increase it more slowly.
- A second option for adding duration is to lure your dog’s chin down using your empty hand and slightly delaying when you say good and treat.
- Slowly increase the amount of time between when your dog’s chin touches your hand and when you saying good.
- You will want to ping pong the time you wait before marking so the sometimes it is shorter and other times longer, rather than always making it more difficult with longer and longer wait times.