Directions: With Rover standing in front of you, hold out a doggie treat and show it to your Rover. Hold it so your Rover can't just take it out of your hand. Now lead Rover with the treat in a circle while saying SPIN. After Rover completes the rotation, give him the treat, and praise with "Good SPIN!" and repeat. After a couple of training sessions, I try it without a treat, by just having Rover follow my finger. Finally this evolves into a simple finger spin and the vocal SPIN command.
Alternatives: This trick can also be taught to be direction specific. I recommend first teaching Rover SPIN. If Rover spins in the same direction every time, simply repeat the above method going the other direction and add "counter spin" to the command. Or you can tell Rover to SPIN RIGHT or SPIN LEFT. Once your Rover gets good at this you can even have him spin in a figure eight! Just make sure to keep it to one or two rotations, or you Rover will get dizzy!
Special thanks go out to ShaooriI for the trick suggestion!
Link back to my dog trick place.
