Most people have seen a dog beg at one time or another. They sit very cute on their bottom with their front legs tucked into their chest. Usually a dog is begging for food or a treat.
While this is a very fun trick to treat your dog, it is not for all dog breeds. Depending on the structure of your dogs body, some breeds have trouble being in the beg position. Also, older dogs really have trouble keeping their balance with the beg position.
Use your dog obedience training and command your dog to "sit" in front of you. Hold your dogs favourite treat just above his head. As soon as your dog begins to move up toward the treat reward your dog.
The next step is going to require your dog to move up a little higher to reach the treat. Make sure not to hold the treat up too high, because your dog will likely leave the sitting position and extend his back legs in order to reach the treat. You want your dog to simply move slightly on his haunches to reach the treat.
Continue to follow the steps outlined above, but this time extend the time that your dog remains in the beg position for 3 seconds. The dog should have his front paws naturally in the beg position as he come up. Make sure to watch his form.
It is time to add in your verbal cue word "beg." Just before you show your dog the treat to begin the beg trick, say "beg." If you would like to use another word that is fine too, just make sure that you are consistent with your command word.
We are now ready to eliminate the treat. This is a little tricky with this series of training, because most of the time when you are asking your dog to beg in the future, it will be for some type of treat. However, we want your dog to be able to perform the trick on the cue alone, and not only because there is a visible treat. Begin by placing the treat in a closed fist, so your dog cannot see the treat. Eventually, you can remove the treat all together.
With practise over time the dog will learn to do this cool trick just by hearing the word "beg" and no hand gestures or treats will be needed.