EASY Chin Rest – Dog Training by Kikopup
hey everyone today I’m going to show you
how I train the behavior of the chin
rest now I learned about the chin rest
about 13 years ago from my mentor Kyle
Ryan and I really loved her technique
for training it but I’ve found that with
clients with variable training
experience it can be very tricky for
them when they’re using a lot of counter
conditioning and free shaping in the
beginning of their lesson if they have a
fearful dog that doesn’t really like
being touched because it involves
knowing when to move on to something
that’s more difficult for the dog and
when to decrease criteria so the method
that I use is luring and encouraging the
dog to come into your space first rather
than reaching for your dog to put your
hand under their chin like this so you
hold the treat and you let the dog eat
it and then you back away from the dog
and then you start to incorporate your
hand underneath the treat so that the
dog question rub against your hand in
order to get the treat if you have a shy
dog you don’t have to move as quickly
you can also throw a treat away from you
to reset the dog to come towards you to
put their chin in your hand like that
and you don’t have to make it harder and
harder as you go you can also have
treats where you don’t put your hand
under your dog’s chin for sometimes when
you throw the treats you can make the
dog too excited so you’re gonna have to
just reset the dog by backing away from
the dog very exciting
so once the dog has gotten used to
feeling your hand going under his chin
as he goes to get the treat you can
start to train the behavior so you’re
going to invite your dog into your space
and then you’re going to lower the treat
over your hand so that your dog puts his
chin into your hand on his own and you
can mark good with a comm marker like
yep or good you want to also start
feeding your dog in a calm manner so
you’re going to lower the tree good good
the next step is getting rid of the
treat Lord so you’re going to have your
dog visually follow an empty hand like
this and then go to get the treat good
Wendie dog is reliably putting his chin
to your hand you can say your verbal
cute just before you do your visual hand
signal so I’m gonna say chin and then
I’m going to drop the treat so that my
dog puts his chin into my hand good job
if you want the chin rest to be a
calming behavior you want to make sure
that your dog isn’t fixated on the
treats when you’re marking so after
you’ve added your verbal cue and your
dog is doing the chin rest you can make
sure to mark while they’re not looking
at the food so you can choose a moment
where they’re looking out straight ahead
of them to say good or you can mark when
your dog makes eye contact with you
