Novice Dog Trick: Teach Your Dog to Crawl

I was pretty intimidated by this skill. It seemed so hard to train your dog to crawl along the floor like an army soldier. But with basic training skills and a positive attitude, any dog can learn this. It’s a simple and fun trick that dogs of all shapes and sizes can learn!

If you are interested in trick training, keep reading to learn how to train your dog to crawl.

Why should I train my dog to crawl?

You do not have to train your dog to crawl. But you may want to if:

• You are tired of the same old training sessions and want to learn a new skill with your dog.
• You want to train your dog to crawl 3 body lengths obtain your AKC Novice Dog Trick Title
• You want to train your dog to crawl 5 body lengths to obtain your AKC Intermediate Dog Trick Title.
• You want to learn a fun trick to wow a crowd.

3 Steps to Train Your Dog to Crawl

All you need are some training treats for this! I used Ezra’s kibble. I recommend training your dog to lay down first. That will ensure that your dog gets into the right position to begin learning this trick.

Step 1: Down your dog and begin to food lure

Use a hand signal or say the command to get your dog to lay down. Make sure he is in a square position, with his hips straight and his legs directly under him. That is important, because it’ll be much harder to crawl unless he’s positioned correctly. Keep working with him until he is positioned correctly.

Once he is laying down squarely, take a few pieces of kibble and hold your hand out a couple inches from his nose. You want the treats close enough that he thinks he can stretch forward to eat it. You don’t want it so far away that he stands up. Once he stretches forward to eat it, let him have a treat. Even if he doesn’t actually crawl.

Step 2: Get him to crawl for the first time!

Once he finishes eating a couple pieces of kibble from your hand, he’ll probably try to eat more. When he does that, move your hand out a couple more inches. He may stop and think about what to do next, and that’s OK. You want him to inch forward by crawling to your hand. If he does, GREAT! Give him some more kibble.

If he begins to stand up, that’s OK. Get him back in a down and begin food luring in step 1. When you get to step 2, take your other hand and hold it about 1-2 inches above his back or hind legs. That way if he starts to get up, he should feel your hand and that should discourage him from standing. It will hopefully reinforce the crawl behavior.

Step 3: Increase crawl length

All you have to do in order to increase the crawl length is keep moving your hand out a couple more inches for your dog to crawl towards. In the beginning, your dog is still learning what it is you want and may break position. That’s OK. Keep practicing, staring with downing your dog and then food luring to move towards you.

Keep rewarding the small behaviors of moving every couple inches until he is repeating the behavior a few times without breaking it, but we want to eventually fade away eating a snack every couple inches.

During this phase, we should work towards luring your dog 3-5 body lengths until he gets his reward. In order to do that, move your hand out 3-4 inches instead of 1-2 inches to get him to crawl toward for his snack. When we can predict he will do that behavior repeatedly, move your hand out 4-5 inches, then 6-7 inches, and so on.

Once your dog is repeatedly crawling 3-5 body lengths, add a verbal command. Keep practicing! This is a tough trick to learn, but don’t worry – if you want to obtain your dog titles you can do so with food luring.

Conclusion

This fun trick is easy to train your dog with a little food motivation. Lean on food luring your dog into the right behaviors. In order to do that, all you have to do is:

• Down your dog.
• Hold some treats a couple inches away from his nose.
• Reward when he reaches for them without standing up.
• Then move the treats out another couple inches,
• Reward when he crawls towards them.
• Repeat!

Have you trained your dog to crawl? How long did it take to fade the food lure?

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