Teaching "Roll Over"

Several of you asked how I taught Tilly to roll over. I told her "down" and then gently pushed her on her side. Then with a treat I got her to follow my hand over to the other side as I used the command. The first few times I helped her to roll over to the other side. She'll do anything for food, so it wasn't very hard. Don't forget lots of praise.

When I have some free time I'm going to have to try this!! She looked so cute doing all her tricks!

We were supposed to teach roll over in Snifter's first tricks class. We tried and tried and tried. Nope. Nada. Nothing. I expect Snifter thought it might make him look silly. Snifter Pug disapproves of silliness.

I think this one will be hard to teach my girls, especially Gracie. I taught Emma how to bow but this roll over thing seems hard. I have to agree though, the video of her rolling over is so cute!

honey can barely even lay down when we tell her to let ALONE ROLL OVER BUT I GUESS ILL STILL HAVE TO TRY IT

Thurston knows how to roll over. All I have to do is wait until it is time for their before bed walk, approach him with the leash and buddy belt, say "Do you wanna go for a walk?" and he rolls right over!



Tilly is one smart girl!

you made it sound super easy! im going to have to try your method out! mine loooooves treats and this would be a fun way for him to earn them. thanks!

Otto never wanted to learn "roll over", even though he was very good with everything else I tried to teach him.

Then, I noticed he never rolls over naturally, never sleeps on his back with his legs up.......he also has some back issues due to some vertebrae stenosis. Our vet recommended minimizing jumping, jarring, twisting actions because of this. I started to wonder if Otto's disinclination of rolling over was related to the vertebrae problem. I don't know for sure, but I'm not pushing him to learning this trick for fear it could be uncomfortable for him because of the back issue.

Does anyone else have pugs with back problems and have you found that they don't tend to roll over? I'm curious to see if there's a connection.

As sweet and submissive as Pugsly and Taz were, they would never go on their backs. Now, Tinker and Ruffy spend half the day on their backs. When we approach them, they just fall to the ground and roll over so it is possible that I could get them to do this on command. We believe that neither of them have bones in their body because you should see the positions they get themselves in

Jessie used to roll over. She'd do it with the command "Bang" (and a finger pointed like a gun). Sick, I know, but funny! Especially funny when she'd start looking around with one eye to see if I was ready to give her the treat...

Then one day she refused to do it, and hasn't done it since! I suspect it has something to do with the other pugs in the house - she doesn't want to exposer her belly to them (even though she's the most submissive of the bunch!).

That is how we did it too - sometimes I would give the little push and move a treat around at the same time. Ruby may be a bad behaved dog, but she is a quick learner of tricks.

I have never been able to get any of my three to roll over-they can do sit, stay, high five-but they turn to stone when I try roll over. I might try it again though, this way.

I've never taught this trick as I'm petrified of torsion. Probably not an issue with pugs, but it is hard wired in me from my dalmatian and great dane days to not teach it. Plus, my guys would never bother. Lie on their backs, yes (at least Tank will), but roll over on command.....not so much