I started dabbling with Able’s back-up behaviour a couple of months ago, but we didn’t make much progress and I shelved it. That’s part of the truth, anyway. The other part is that I do most of Able’s training at mealtimes using his kibble, but that doesn’t really work for back-up training. Puppy kibble comes in tiny tiny pieces and it’s too dark to easily see against the carpet, and I need to deliver the food behind him where he can’t see it land.
I was a bit annoyed with myself to realise that my puppy was six months old and still couldn’t back up on cue. I didn’t have any plans last Sunday so I cut up a huge pile of cheese and set alarms so that I could get in four training sessions that day to knock it off. I was surprised to find that he was further along than I thought – and now I’m pretty pleased with his back-up.

Backing up is a very useful body awareness exercise for agility puppies. It really helps them to understand where their back legs are, and how to move them independently. Later I’ll work on backing up onto a platform – which I’ve found to be vital to training a stopped contact – but first I want to see if I can get a bit more length onto our back-up down the hallway.
Tips For Training A Back-Up
This is an exercise where form matters. The puppy should be stepping backwards with one back leg at a time, and you should see the back legs moving before or with the front ones.
The most intuitive way to train a puppy to back up is to just walk into his personal space, and then reward him for moving backwards. The problem with this is that it usually results in a puppy that walks backwards with the front legs first, and then the back end just gets pushed backwards.
Continue reading “An Easy/Lazy Method for Training Back Up”