Teaching Walk Back Skill

Walk back is a great skill to have that will compliment your obedience training. I use it as a fun trick, as a way to move my dog back if they come forward on a signal or position change cue and also drop on recall. It is a relatively easy skill to teach. This demo is with my 4.5-month-old puppy Seven. I like to shape this exercise by teaching my dog to seek to putting his hind feet onto a mat that is textured a raised platform or folded towel, something that feels different than the floor surface they are on, when their back feet hit that target they know they have reached their destination. Once the skill is taught the mat can easily be removed and you just mark once your dog has backed up far enough. To build distance and your dog being able to walk back in a straight line, I will lay chutes on either side with baby gates, gutters, etc. and have their mat at the end. I start at the end of the cute, walking my dog over the mat and reinforcing the hind feet on the mat. Then I start to move into the chute and asking for short increments going back until I have my dog going back thru the entire distance of the chute. Have fun training this exercise!

[@thekynologist155]

Miss Janice, we are remodeling a new studio space that’ll offer us about 700 sq ft of open space. Your floor is the ideal that we’ve decided on. The only material we’ve found within budget that works is the 12’ or so wide rolled rubber substrate they use on flat, usually commercial, roofs. Can you share what you are standing on in your studio? Where you sourced it? And thank you for all the videos of beauty, truth and goodness you and your team share on that floor!

[@JaniceGunn]

My flooring is called rolled rubber mats. You can find them on a website called Great Mats and there is also one called Specialized Flooring

[@thekynologist155]

Thanks muchly for taking time to share the intell, Miss Janice! And al the more for the training wisdom you so liberally offer to affect the lives of some many teams out there!! There may be some channel out there who can boast this or that, but when the criteria are reduced to the very best methodology/techniques presented with the greatest degree of clarity, you’re the GOAT. And, per media commentor decorum and false humility, I’ll concede “That’s just my honest opinion.” But I won’t stop there...it is a fact. Sure, I follow a “2x world champion,” who claims to have all but bent kynological reality to his will, resulting in something like a novel training doctrine and praxis in the fifth dimension or something, but he is so closed fisted it benefits no one, man, woman, or dog, with less than $10-15K. But not so here! So thank you for all!

[@histarmiro]

Thank you! Was thinking how to teach this skill with my pup, can't do it with luring, he goes into "down" immediately, but he's really good with shaping and is familiar with touch-pads. Gonna try this method, thanks again!

[@JaniceGunn]

Absolutely! Just take it one step at a time, don't rush the process.

[@CassidyShatzky]

Thank you for this video! I’ve been teaching my 7 month old border collie / poodle mix to back up. She is progressing very well and can take many successive steps backwards. The problem is that she barks (seemingly in protest) each time I give the cue. Any idea why she might be doing this when asked to perform this particular behavior? Thank you!

[@JaniceGunn]

Usually the barking comes from frustration. I would start out with your dog's back feet on his target, reward a few times there and then gradually move further away. When he hits his target, mark it and reach forward with your hand encourging him to come and get the treat from you, that is your "reset" and treat given at the same time. Then ask for another back up, mark it and reset with your dog coming forward to get the treat. At each success I move a little further away from the target. I don't require them to go to far tho, you might also be asking for to much or to much to soon.

[@CassidyShatzky]

Thanks @@JaniceGunn that makes a lot of sense. If she’s in the right frame of mind, she’ll back up all the way down the hall. Friends and family who have never seen a dog walk backwards are finding it delightfully surreal.