Say Your Prayers

Quick Answer

Say Your Prayers builds in two connected pieces, not one motion: your dog first learns to rest both front paws on a stable platform, then to lower their head between them on cue. Lure each piece with a treat, mark the moment it lands, then fade the lure into the word "pray." Skip a bare forearm as the platform for young kids or an unsteady adult.

Why This Happens

Say Your Prayers chains together two pieces your dog may already know from somewhere else: placing a paw exactly where you ask it to go, the same offer Shake is built on, and driving the nose toward a target held low and close, the mechanic behind Touch. Bow asks for a version of that same front-end drop with all four feet still on the floor. Here the paws land on a platform instead of your open hand, and the head comes down only once both are already planted, not before.

A treat pulled up and toward the platform gets the first paw moving; a second treat, offered the same way, brings the other paw up beside it. Once both paws are resting on the platform, a fresh treat drawn down and back between them pulls your dog's head down to follow, and the exact instant it lands between the paws is what earns the mark. The cue replaces the lure only after that full sequence, paw, paw, bow, happens reliably without one.

Why It Matters

Most dogs pick up the first half of this trick fast: two paws going up onto something is close to what an excited dog already wants to do anyway, so the early reps often feel like the fastest progress your dog makes all week. That momentum usually stalls right at the head-bow. Lowering the head between the paws asks a dog to look away from your face and hold a lower, more exposed posture, a different request than "put your paws here," and plenty of pet parents mistake the slowdown for a stall in training instead of the harder half of the same trick.

Naming that shift matters because it changes what you reward. A dog offered a cued platform-touch instead of a free jump has an outlet for the same paws-up impulse that used to land on a guest's shirt, and a household that keeps working through the head-bow plateau ends up with a trick that replaces an unwanted habit instead of stacking a new cue on top of it.

Before You Begin

Trim or file your dog's nails first. Paws land on skin, fabric, or bare arm on every rep, and a long nail turns a normal rep into a scratch.
Choose the platform on purpose. A bent knee or forearm works for a steady adult, but a low stool, an ottoman, or a folded towel on a chair keeps young children and less steady adults out from under a dog's direct weight and claws.
Check with a veterinarian first if your dog is very young, a senior, or has a known front-leg, wrist, or shoulder issue. Weight-bearing on the front end, held for even a few seconds, is real load on those joints.
Watch for stress signals, not just slow progress: stiffening, lip licking, or turning the head away instead of lowering it means back off, not push through.
Agree on one rule as a household: paws-up and the bow only earn a reward after the cue, never for a dog who climbs onto the platform uninvited.

The Partners Dogs Method

Teaching

Put your dog in a sit facing the platform you settled on in Before You Begin. Hold a treat at the platform's edge and let your dog follow it up with one paw; mark and reward that paw the instant it lands, then reset and repeat until one paw goes up smoothly. Bring the second paw up the same way, marking and rewarding it separately before you ever ask for both together. Once both paws rest on the platform without a fight to get there, bring a fresh treat down and back between them, lowering it slowly enough that your dog's head follows the treat rather than lifting away, and mark the instant their head dips between their own paws. Run the full sequence, paw, paw, bow, enough times that it starts happening without you steering each piece by hand.

Reinforcing

Once your dog is bowing on close to every rep without much help from the lure, say the cue out loud at the point where you'd otherwise have started luring, then let the word lead and the lure follow instead of the other way around. A short one-word cue like "pray" is easier for a dog to pick out of a sentence than the full trick name, and any word does the job as long as every person in the house says the same one. Pay any bow that lands after the word. Delay the treat by half a second longer on each successful rep, until "pray" alone is clearly what's starting the sequence, not the sight of the treat.

Proofing

Move the sequence to a different room next, then introduce a single new distraction per rep: a person walking by, a toy sitting nearby, a burst of background noise. A slower or shakier bow next to a live distraction earns the same reward as a clean one; the goal at this stage is holding the sequence together under pressure, not perfect form.

Maintenance

Say Your Prayers doesn't need a daily rep to stay solid. Fold it into whatever training session is already happening, keep watching for the stress signals covered earlier in Before You Begin, and stay firm on the household rule: paws-up only earns a reward after the cue, never for a dog offering it on their own to a stranger at the door.

What to Do in the Moment

Your dog puts paws up but won't lower their head: The treat is probably moving too fast or too far from their nose. Slow it down and keep it closer to the platform, rewarding any downward head movement before asking for the full bow.
Your dog's paws slide off the platform mid-bow: The surface may be too narrow, too slick, or too high for your dog's size. Switch to something wider, lower, and non-slip before continuing.
Your dog jumps at the platform instead of stepping up calmly: Back up to rewarding a calmer approach, a few steps of paws-on-floor first, before letting them go for the platform again.

Troubleshooting

Your dog refuses to put weight on one particular paw. That is not stubbornness; it may be a physical issue. Stop the rep and check with a veterinarian before more paw-lifting work.

Your dog bows on the platform but not on a lower surface like your knee. Different surfaces feel different under a dog's paws; treat the new surface as a fresh rep zero, not a review.

Your dog offers the whole sequence unprompted, with no cue given. That's a cue discrimination gap, not eagerness worth rewarding. Withhold the reward, reset, and pay only the version that follows the actual word.

Simple Practice Plan

Run five or six reps a couple times through the week, calling it done the moment a bow starts looking sloppy, not after squeezing in one more clean rep. Hold at the platform you started on until both pieces, paws-up and head-down, feel automatic, then introduce a second platform option so the cue isn't tied to one specific object. Shake pairs well into the same short session; it asks for a single paw instead of two, giving your dog an easy trick to close on.

Pet Parent Coaching Tips

Pay the bow that lands after you say the word, even a slow, careful one, over a fast version your dog offers before being asked. End the session on your own read of your dog's energy, not a rep count set in advance. Every person practicing this trick should use the identical cue and hand motion, since a dog hearing two versions of one request is solving two puzzles instead of one. A new platform or a new room is one more rep in a longer pattern, not a fresh test your dog has to pass from scratch.

When to Get Professional Help

Most stalls here are solvable at home: a treat pulled too quickly, a platform sized wrong for your dog, or reps pushed past what your dog had patience for that day. A short list of signals is worth checking against your own safety before you keep practicing solo.

Mild: your dog's nails catch your skin lightly on an occasional rep. Trim the nails, add a layer of clothing over the platform area, or switch to a stool or cushion instead of your own arm or leg.

Moderate: your dog leans full body weight onto the platform, enough to unsteady a small child or an adult with limited balance, or paws hard enough to leave marks on bare skin most sessions. A private-lesson session gives a trainer's hands direct access to the exact paw placement and platform choice, correcting the mechanics before anyone gets hurt.

Severe: your dog's paws break skin, or your dog stiffens, growls, or snaps when a hand comes near their face during the head-bow. Stop the trick entirely and get a professional evaluation before any more paws-up practice; this has crossed from a training question into a safety one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much practice does the head-bow half usually take?

The paws-up half tends to click within a session or two. The head-bow half is typically slower, and there's no dependable day or week count for closing that gap; steady short sessions close it faster than one long session run less often.

The paws land on the platform but the head never drops. Now what?

Slow the treat down and keep it closer to the platform's edge instead of pulling it away too soon. If your dog still won't follow, check the platform itself: an unstable or too-narrow surface makes any dog reluctant to commit their weight forward.

Is Say Your Prayers safe to practice around young children?

It can be, once you've chosen a stable platform instead of a bare arm or leg and trimmed your dog's nails. A young child's arm or lap is not a safe platform for this trick; keep kids as an audience for the finished trick, not as the surface the dog leans on.

What is the difference between Say Your Prayers and Bow?

Bow lowers the whole front end while the back legs stay standing on the floor. Say Your Prayers keeps both front paws elevated on a platform throughout, with only the head dropping down between them, a different balance point and a different physical ask.

Touch: the nose-to-target skill the head-lower half of this trick borrows from.
Bow: the sibling front-end-lowering trick, minus the elevated platform.
Shake: the single-paw version of the same place-your-paw ask, worth pairing into the same short session.
Sit: the starting position every rep of this trick begins from.
Reward Marker (Yes!): the marker mechanic behind every paw-up and every bow in this trick.

Some dogs land both pieces, paws-up and head-down, within a handful of sessions. Others need a steadier platform, a slower lure, or a second pair of eyes confirming exactly where those front paws are landing before the trick is safe to bring home. That's the point where we step in: one of our trainers takes over the platform work directly in a Private Lessons session, correcting paw placement and timing hands-on until the sequence holds up on its own.