Shaping the Pivot (Patreon)

In the last pivot video I showed how I lured the pivot so that he understood how to move his hind legs independent of his front legs. During that video he is moving with my body as I move.

In this video I do a combination of shaping and luring to start have him move his hind end independent of my body. I use a lure over his head and when he moves his feet to look at the lure, I mark and reward. Ideally, we are marking in motion.

You'll see that he gets stuck at a few different points. One time is when he needs to turn away from me and past my legs. I decide to direct lure that portion so that he got it really quickly. He comes back and is able to do it without the direct lure.

I should probably talk more about this in a separate video, but I used to be a shaping purist, as in, I would rarely combine luring and shaping, but over the years I decided that having the dog get it quickly without error can sometimes be helped along by a little luring, or strategic food placement.

Watch how when he gets stuck I throw the food across my body. Doing so sets him up to immediately move his hind end once he hits the box, giving me something to mark for right away.

A bit of a messy session but I'm so pleased with how quickly he understood the assignment. I'm hoping to put all of these pivoting videos together for a future deep dive, but I took a break from pivots for a bit once he got the gist so that will have to wait until I resume and polish the behavior :)

Note that I learned a similar method as shown here from Hannah Brannigan but have modified it for my use and the dog in front of me. Also, Hannah would absolutely have a fit if she saw the way I help him with small hand placement adjustments 😂, so if you want to learn the original method from the master, check out Hannah Brannigans book "Awesome Obedience".