How to choreograph a dog dancing routine…

* Don’t forget to vote in the Slobber Contest if you haven’t yet!

A lot of you have been asking me for a long time now to show how I make up my dog dancing routines with Hsin-Yi, for Canine Freestyle – especially as some of you already know lots of tricks and moves and would like to put them together to some music but don’t know where to start!

Well, different doggies and their humans do it in different ways but here is how we make up our choreographies:

In the video, I have given a sample choreography for a simple routine – you can have a go at it if you like! The music is “Sweet Home Alabama” by LYNYRD SKYNYRD. Scroll down to the bottom of the post for a breakdown of the tricks & moves involved & to download the music…

* If any of you doggies have a particular piece of music that you’d like help with the choreography for, just let me know!

1) Choose the music

“Music” is a special noise that humans like a lot, although they don’t all like the same kind.  Humans can be quite shy creatures sometimes and are very scared of what other humans might think about them, so they ‘freeze up’ like we doggies do sometimes at the dog park and don’t want to be noticed – and this is no good for dancing!

But every human has a really favourite type of music that makes them feel happy and want to jump around or even just tap their paws on the floor – something that they just can’t keep still when they hear it! – it could be any kind: Pop, Country, Hip Hop, Ballet, Rock, Jazz, etc…so it’s your job to help your human find their special music.

It’s also important to look for music which has a nice, strong beat and rhythm that you can hear easily – especially if you’re still new to doggie dancing and haven’t had much experience of making up routines yet. The strong boom-boom’s will make it easier for you and your human to follow the music and do your tricks at the right time. (My video above had some good examples…)

One thing to remember, though (especially if you’re a slow doggie like me! ) is to choose a rhythm which matches the natural pace of the dog.  All of us doggies have a natural rhythm and you can see this most easily when we are trotting - so one thing you can try is to trot around the room with your human while the music is on, and see which one matches your natural pace the best. (Of course, if you’re a big doggie like me, you may have to find someplace other than your living room to try this!)

Another important thing to look for is music that keeps changing - not one which sounds the same all the way through. The more ‘drama’ and different speeds and sounds there is, the better! Because this makes it much easier when you are making up the choreography to see where to do different moves and connect them together – and where to put certain tricks. It also makes it much more interesting to watch for your audience, than if it’s just the same sounds repeating themselves.

Lastly, because doggie dancing is a “spectator-sport”, it is good to find music with a catchy tune that most people will know and like, because your human will feel the crowd’s happy reaction and this gives them a buzzy feeling which makes them dance better and look more confident.

Length of music for routine: for beginners, 1 min 30s is plenty – it may not sound a lot but that’s a long time to keep us doggies focused and performing trick after trick! I have been doing this for over 2yrs now and have only got to 2min, 20 s on my routines!

2) Listen to your music…A LOT!! “Map out” the music

Once you have picked a piece of music, you should get your human to walk around the living room (without you!) and just listen to it many, many times. Try to pick out all the places the music changes and especially any special points in the music, like loud drums or pauses or sudden differences in speed or tune.  

Walking around with the music also helps your human start to get a ‘feel’ for the rhythm and how to move with the music – like maybe swaying or bobbing or shuffling or quick steps or whatever…even if your human has never done any dancing before, it doesn’t matter: they don’t have to do fancy dance steps – they can just bend their knees a bit or shift their weight from foot to foot or sway their bums left and right – so that they are moving WITH the music. This is a very important part of the final routine looking good and flowing, and not just like you are doing stiff Obedience with music in the background.

 For some humans, it can be easier if they count along to the music – usually in groups of 4 or 8 beats, (eg. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…)

3) Make a list of all the tricks & moves you can do

Don’t worry – you don’t need to have a huge repertoire before you can make a routine. Some of the best routines are the simple ones! You just need to have a few moves that you can do well. Here are some basic tricks & moves you can use to start a simple dance routine (you don’t have to know all of them – just some):

• Sit
• Down
• Spin
• Come or Follow
• Through the Legs
• “Touch” – Hand Targetting (following the human’s hand)
• Circle/Round (walk around your human)
• Shake Paws
• Walking next to your human, eg. Heeling or Hand Targetting (when you walk next to your human, following their hand with your nose – it’s a useful alternative to Heeling, if you have never learnt to Heel)

…and here are some more advanced moves:

• Weave through legs (both standing and walking)
• Beg
• Rollover
• Marching (both sitting and standing)
• Reverse
• Bow
• ‘Pole’ – circle a stick or your human’s leg
• Turn & Reverse through legs
• Stand up on hind legs
• Front (crab-walk sideways in front of your human)
• Jump (over your human’s arm, leg or a stick or through your human’s arms)
• Trot (lifting your paws up)

Remember, some dogs cannot do some moves, because of their size and mobility – for example, I cannot do the Turn & Reverse through legs move because I am just too big and my human is too small! I also cannot stand up on my hind legs or do a Rollover very well. But that is OK because you can always choose other moves that you CAN do (moves that you like and do well naturally) and you can even make up your own moves & tricks! For example, I invented the ‘shimmy‘ move which means I shake my head when my human wriggles her shoulders! It’s good to be a bit creative and original, rather than just doing all the same things as everyone else.

Practise your individual moves with your human until you know them really well and will do them as soon as your human gives you the verbal command or hand/leg cue.

4) Pick the tricks & moves which suit different parts of the music. Put the highlights in first and ‘join the dots’ later

We don’t believe that you have to make up a routine in chronological order, from beginning to end. This can make things a lot harder. Once we find the places where the music changes and any special points in the music, we think about what tricks & moves would suit them and put them in first.

For example, a dip in the music might suit a Bow or a Down; a clash of drums might suit a Jump; a flowing section in the middle might suit some Weaving and a series of sudden swells in the music might suit Spins…don’t worry if there are blanks in between where you don’t know what to do – you can fill them in later!

We have often worked out an intro to a routine, a few moves at special points in the middle, and how the routine ends…but no idea what else happens in between! But we just start practising those bits first until we think of other moves to put in the routine. You will find that it’s easier to “fill in the blanks” if you have put in some highlights already – rather than if you’re just staring at 1min 30s of blank space, trying to make up a choreography chronologically!

5) Mix travelling moves with stationary moves

One good way of ‘filling in the blanks’ is to mix in travelling moves (eg. Heeling, Weaving, Reversing, Hand Targeting, Recalls) with stationary moves (eg. Bow, Jump, Rollover, Beg, Spin, Paw Marches, Sit, Down) – so for example – if you have a point in the music which suits a Bow and another point a bit further on which suits a Rollover, you can think about filling the bit in between:

…Bow…………………………………………………………………………………………Rollover…

…Bow…………….Hand Targetting+ Walking………….Sit…Down…Rollover…

 It’s a little bit like the Lego game that human pups like and you have to build things using the differently-coloured and -shaped pieces you’ve got!

6) Practise the choreograhy first without the dog

Get your human to practise doing the whole routine to music, without you, while you just watch them first. This is ’coz if you try to both do it together to start with, things can get really messy! And humans are very easily confused, remember! So give them some time to learn the routine themselves first, so they know it really well, before you join them in the dancing. 

7) Start to string some tricks & moves together

Now, get your human to divide the choreography up into sections and start to practise 2 or 3 tricks in a row together with you. Start by rewarding you after every trick – then only after 2 tricks done together – then only after 3 tricks done together… etc

Like in the example (5)  above, practise doing Sit, Down, Rollover together - before you get your treat…until you’re doing it smoothly and quickly.

For example, a very short routine might be:

Walk – Spin – Walk – Spin…Walk – Sit…Walk – Bow

So you would practise the 3 sequences:

[Walk - Spin- Walk - Spin] and [Walk-Sit] and [Walk-Bow] separately first, until you’re doing them really well…

Do this until you have covered the whole routine, even if you only know it in sections. Don’t worry if you can’t put all the sections together yet.

 8 ) Practise the routine with the dog,  without music first

Now try to put the sections together, WITHOUT music. Don’t worry if it does not flow smoothly – just work on joining all the tricks together.

Remember – your human should still reward you after every couple of tricks, to keep your attention and focus and motivation! And praise you lots and talk to you all the time. It is very hard for us doggies to concentrate for a length of time and keep doing trick after trick and following our human’s cues, so don’t lose heart if you keep getting distracted…just be patient and practise!

It can take weeks before you’re doing all the sections together smoothly. But it does get easier the more you do it and get used to following your human’s cues. It took me 6 months to learn my very first routine – whereas now, I can learn a simple routine very quickly in a few weeks or even a few days (although I might still not do it perfectly)

9) Finally, try doing your routine to music!

This is the hardest part and it can be a big leap but don’t worry, you can do it if you just be patient and practise lots.

Sorry for such a long post and I hope I haven’t scared you off! I wanted to make sure that I gave you all the details but it’s really not that complicated.

As you can see in my video above, I have given a sample choreography for a simple routine - you can have a go at it if you like!

The music is “Sweet Home Alabama” by LYNYRD SKYNYRD and you can download it here – we are just using the ‘instrumental intro’ in the beginning, before the singing starts…

The moves are:

• Walk (4 steps) 1-2-3-4
• Dog circle around legs 1-2-3-4
• Walk (4 steps) 1-2-3-4
• Dog circle around legs 1-2-3-4
• Run backwards with dog following 1-2-3-4
• Dog run through legs 1-2-3-4
• Skip sideways with dog following 1-2-3-4
• Dog Sits 1-2
• Dog Shakes Paw 3-4

- you can also exchange the last 4 beats (Dog Sits & Shakes Paw) with a Spin instead

 Of course, you can also substitute other moves yourself or choose a different piece of music but this is just to give you an idea and get you started. If any of you DO learn this routine, please, please do post a video on your blog and let me know, as I’d love to see you!!

I hope this post was interesting and useful for those of you who are thinking of putting together a dance routine…

Happy Dancing!