K-9 LifeSavers

Agility competitions have been gaining popularity for quite some time, but we're also seeing dog dancing competitions become more prevalent these days.  In this addition of our trick series, we focus on "Circle Me" an exercise that is a basic skill in both agility and dancing.  Even if you and your dog are not in training, who doesn't love dancing around the house?

The idea: your dog moves in a full circle around your body.

• Start out with your dog standing in front of you with a treat in your hand. Draw your dog around you while saying the command "circle me."
• After several successful circles, change directions so that your dog is flexible enough to go both ways.  You may want to add a hand signal or "circle me left" and "cirle me right" commands to help cue your dog to the direction you want him to go to.
• Once your dog is comfortably circling you in both directions, begin to move forward do that your dog is circling you while you are moving forward.  This may confuse your dog a bit, and you may have to take a step back to drawing the treat around your body while moving forward.  This is not an easy exercise, but it should be a fun exercise that allows the two of you to play together.

Troubleshooting

• This is a bit of a challenging exercise for your dog, so you may want to start out by turning in a full circle with him, leading him with the treat just in front of his nose.
• As he becomes more comfortable with this, remain facing forward, but circle your body with the treat, changing hands behind you.
• Finally stand facing forward without moving the treat, so that the dog is circling you solely on command.

Advances practice:

• "Circle me" lays the ground work for a number of things, it focuses the dogs attention on his handler and improves his flexibility.  When you can move forward with your dog circling you in both directions you can start to create patterns of several circles, and then add on weaving between your legs and add that to your patterns. Before you know it your dancing!