I really like to teach a chin rest using free shaping, as well as using counter conditioning the dog to find a hand reaching into his space a pleasant experience in the way I learned it from my mentor Kyle Rayon. However, I have found over the years that following the steps in an online video is difficult for someone who is new to training. Also over the years of doing seminars in other countries, I have found this technique of using luring to teach the chin rest the fastest and most reliable to use in a seminar environment. The great thing about the technique is that the dog is moving into your space all the time, so it’s easy to see if the dog is finding it too much. Where if you reach into your dog’s space, even if he stays there and doesn’t move away, it’s hard to know how comfortable he is. I also find by playing “hard to get” it increases the dog’s confidence.
If you have a dog who has never been touched or you know has a history of being fearful, aggressive or resource guards, please hire a professional trainer who doesn’t use intimidation to train to help you through the training process for your safety and the safety of the dog. Sometimes more training is needed to lower the dog’s arousal around food and build trust in you first before beginning this exercise.
If you have a dog who is too excited about the treats to take them nicely or learn the behavior:
1- have treats in a treat bag on you all day long and when your dog is not thinking about the food and settled and relaxed calmly go and drop the treat. This will help your dog not get revved by the treat bag or container coming out.
2 – https://dogmantics.com/taking-treats-nicely/ here is a tutorial to get the dog calmly taking treats 3 – work on a calm marker that predicts you will deliver the treat in a calm manner 4 – for the moment don’t train before meals- train after meals (make sure not to do anything too active) 5 – use lower value treats at first, slowly build up to higher value treats – feed a variety for meals to prevent novelty being so exciting.
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– Emily Larlham (AKA Kikopup)
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I taught my gfs doggo to do this based on a video you did several years ago. I put it on a que word called ‘relax.’
It was funny coz the dog would just dive into my palm after a while, it was funny.
Awesome! The video I put out a long time ago- its great for most dogs- but some people have struggled with because as they reach toward their dog if you rush it you can make your dog more worried about reaching…
Your dog is so chill! I would love to watch you work on this with a novice hyper dog. I’ve watched the other calm vids of yours, and I definitely see the goal clearly. I can get my guy to lie on the floor with his chin resting on the floor and eventually his tail stops wagging. If I am very deliberate about delivering the treats in super slow motion (and pulling the treat back when he starts vibrating with excitement) I can get him to take them without becoming a jack-in-the-box (SPROING) eventually, over 10-20 minutes. But we don’t make progress from one session to the next (or at least it is such slow progress I get bored and want to work on something else instead haha; I guess I should get a stopwatch to help me see progress). If you could borrow an overenthusiastic pup who doesn’t know what you want yet, I feel like I could get a lot out of watching your timing, the body language cues you are shaping, and how long in a novice situation you can wait out the excitement without losing the dog’s participation. [I fed my enthusiastic dog his kibble a couple sessions, 2-3 kibbles at a time, pausing and waiting when he acted excited and rewarding for stillness like in your video. The sessions took over 2 hours each to just get through his 1 cup of breakfast. I don’t have the patience to do that most days! Something a bit less tedious would help me stick with it better.]
Oh boy! I love that you think my dog is chill ☺ ☺ Its because I did work on it.
Wish is in fact a super hyper speed demon-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHd-huFB_vQ
Wish unable to contain herself while watching my other dog do a cue she knows- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3oi7svoCW0
Wish did take a long time to teach her to not be frustrated or over excited –
Wish frustrated over food- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywr58SkTsYM
Wish learning Luring-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwQfW54Yh8s
I have a video in my Leash Walking Connected course that shows a dog who is whining and barking for food change in a day just working on the settle. Its not about reinforcing stillness- its about lowering arousal around food first. I think that is what you are struggling with .
Instead of trying to work through over excitement or reinforce stillness I suggest –
1- have treats in a treat bag on you all day long and when your dog is not thinking about the food and settled and relaxed calmly go and drop the treat (when your dog is not “offering” or thinking about food). Do this for a week at least https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wesm2OpE_2c 2 – https://dogmantics.com/taking-treats-nicely/ here is a tutorial to get the dog calmly taking treats – if you work on just this it will help the over arousal around food after you do the first exercise 3 – work on a calm marker that predicts you will deliver the treat in a calm manner 4 – for the moment don’t train before meals- train after meals (make sure not to do anything too active) 5 – use lower value treats at first, slowly build up to higher value treats – feed a variety for meals to prevent novelty being so exciting.
Good Video. It’s very useful. I will follow it.
Thanks a lot! In this way the chin rest is really easy to train. Our results are good. It is a very useful behavior for cleaning the eyes and brushing the teeth. Your written explanation is very much appreciated.
Thank you for this video! My rescue dog is fearful and gets scared when she doesn’t do something right the first time. It can be frustrating figuring out how to make things easier for her. Breaking it down into baby steps like this is so much easier for her to learn 🙂
I’ve been looking at all of your “calming” videos and now this one. I’m working with my nearly 24 week old English Shepherd for calming, particularly around my cat. The cat entices play as does Emmett (puppy) but it tends to get a bit too much, too rough – in my opinion. Bottom line, this and other of your calming recommendations are helping us progress. Thank you so much!
Always impressed by how calm your dogs are and also how they wait so patiently when it’s not their turn. Thanks for this calmer version of teaching a chin rest. Plan to use this with a client’s dog today! 🙂
My dog probably would have gone for the bag of treats you left on the floor lol.
It’s incredible the way the 3 other dogs wait so quietly and calmly on the couch!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfRrBH_beX8&t=1s I have this video on how to train it 🙂
What’s the duration we should be working toward? (My dog is at around 8 seconds)
It depends on what you are using it for. If you were using it to teach the concept of long duration targeting for heelwork, then I would do it for longer. But if you are using it to teach your dog to greet people that is a perfect length of time. It just only matters what the end goal is.
Dog Training by Kikopup what about for vet visits?
Depends what they do at the vet. I suggest asking the vet to give your dog breaks. 🙂
I saw this and it was great, I just started petting my dogs and named their body parts with treats, over time in less than a week I was able to touch it all and they know what I want and allow me to manipulate that body part or they lean into my hand with it, now I can check all those parts and they stay still. So we do chin, head, ears, nose, eyes and smile. Over time I actually put coconut oil on the front teeth and over more time slide it to the back molars and leave the thumb and pointer finger there until they figured out that ahhhh meant to relax and open the mouth, this allows me to check for debris and health of their teeth. The get to lick the coconut oil afterwards which they absolutely love. After working with my super shy pup for a year she finally lets me in with a toothbrush even with one tooth that is a problem. This is great because I can keep tabs on the gum and teeth health and making sure she gets the right raw bones to keep things clean for her mouth. Quite fascinating and helpful as from time to time stupid things get stuck like they pick up a twig or old piece of fruit with a seed so now I can actually pick it out with no fear of a dog freaking out. We are still working on the nail thing. Finally got a routine with her and today she freaked out on me. Back to square one, we are still moving forward. Keep sharing and hoping all that come here find their ideas to help their pups. Prayers to the journey
Ana, this is fantastic. Would love to see video.
I love your video💕😊
What if my dog starts offering his paw? Are we moving too fast?
I suggest to feed a treat and then touch the chin, then lure onto the hand with a treat, in the next trial if the dog offers pawing. You can also try and use the other hand to do the chinrest if your dog is like Right pawed or Left pawed…
What are the pre requistes needed before training this ?
Some great advice here, thanks Emily!
Thanks!
I taught my puppy this because it was a meme 😆 I also taught him the snoot challenge. Dogs are amazing! They learn so quickly!
Amazing training chin rest . From texas
How do you transition from chin on your hand to chin on the table top? And what if he is nervous to the point he is not interested in treats, even top value ones?
This is one behaviour I definitely need to teach my puppy, so this video is incredibly helpful, thank you. 😊
yeah its a great one