Teach your dog to bow not only makes for a flashy trick, but also help to put a visiting dog at ease. Dogs invite each other to play in this position and it can be an excellent way for your dog to learn to make friends. To perform this trick, the dog starts from a standing position and lowers the front half of his body until his elbows touch the floor.

1. Start your dog in a standing position. Hold your hand below her chin (about 3 inches) and get her to touch your hand, then click and treat.
2. Gradually make it harder by placing your hand closer to the ground in increments of several inches each time. Click and treat your dog for making an attempt to lower her head further to touch your hand.
3. When your hand is resting on the ground, click and treat your dog for touching it with her nose without lying all the way down. If your dog continually lies down, raise your hand by several inches for a while before continuing.
4. Make sure you watch your dog carefully and click and treat any effort she makes to bend her elbows.
5. Once your dog will lower her top half, start giving her less help by removing your target hand before she touches it.
6. Fade the hand target until she drops her head when you just begin to make the motion with your hand.
7. Increase the difficulty by increasing the duration (length of time the dog holds the behaviour) by adding a 'Hold It' or 'Stay' command. To increase the duration of the bahvior, delay the click by one or two seconds and gradually increase the time.
8. Add a verbal cue like 'Bow' just before she performs the behavior.
9. Take it on the road and perform at new places.

In order to make progress in trick training, you need to work at a pace where the dog is getting clicked and treated frequently. As you increase the difficulty of a trick, try not to let the dog make more than two or three mistakes before you show your dog what you want him to do.