Once your dog has mastered the “Middle” trick, your next objective is to get your dog to weave around your legs in a “Figure of Eight” motion.

The easiest way to teach this trick is to lure your dog so you will require plenty of treats in both hands as you will need to switch hands to get the figure of Eight shape.

• Ask your Dog to come to the Middle position.
• With a treat in your right hand, lure your dog to turn around the outside of your right leg so that it is now facing behind you
• With your left hand, lure your dog back between your Legs (i.e. Perform the Middle Trick)
• From the middle position, use your left hand to lure your dog to turn around the outside of your left leg so that it is now facing behind you
• With your right hand, lure your dog back between your Legs (i.e. Perform the Middle Trick again)
• Mark with a “Yes” in places that are key, such as behind your legs and at the “Middle” position and reward with treats to entice your dog to keep following your hands. This will reassure your dog that it has understood what you are trying to explain

When your dog starts to get the idea and is smoothly following your hand, start to gradually fade out the treats that you are giving. Keep using your hand as a lure to reinforce the behaviour that you want your dog to perform. To do this:

• Reduce the number of treats so that you are only giving the reward each time your dog returns to the middle position.
• Start making the treats harder for your dog to get at by holding them in the palm of your hand rather than your fingertips.
• Fade the number of treats further so that you are only treating each time your dog has done a complete circuit around both of your legs

As you are rewarding less you will be able to keep your hands moving smoothly and will find that in response your dog will perform the trick faster and smoother.

When you have a good level of smoothness to the behaviour and have reduced the number of treats to the point that your dog is completing a full figure of eight between treats, it is time to start introducing a verbal cue. The command can be anything you want so long as its unique to this trick.

In the following video where we start teaching Vera the Figure of Eight, we are simply going to use the command “Eight”

You will need to perform plenty of repetitions of the Trick when you have introduced the verbal cue to get your dog to fully associate the command to the behaviour. During this phase you will still need to use your hands to lure your dog, although you will have already phased out a lot of the treats. When you are sure your dog has a good understanding of the command and is offering the behaviour in response to it, you can slowly start to fade out your hand movements. This is quite a complex trick for your dog to master only using a command.

Tip: do not try to do too many Figure or Eights in a row before rewarding your dog or it will give up. This is a common mistake people do when their dog starts to master the trick as it is fun. Only decrease the frequency of markers and treats gradually.