Tricks Training Using Your Dog’s Natural Behavior
Dogs are amazing creatures in that they conform to their owner’s desires in almost all cases. You would be amazed at the things a dog will do to please their owner, especially when there is some sort of treat involved when all is said and done. There are things that they do as a matter of course, and those are the things that you’re going to want to use while you train them to do tricks. If you combine these methods with treats, then you’ll find that it’s a lot easier to do the training.
Have a look at your dog and try to determine what he or she does for fun. Does he chase butterflies? Does he crawl on his belly? If you think you see him doing something that would make a marvelous trick, then you’re already halfway there. You’ll want to use the same hand motion every time the dog does it, and then you’ll want to provide a treat. By using this method the dog will know a treat is coming and be more than happy to do the trick whenever you display the hand motion.
It’s important to not feed your dog an excessive number of treats. If you feed them too many you risk them either becoming sick, obese, or immune to the treat if you know what I’m saying. Treats will be good in the beginning, but you need to slowly wean your dog off of these treats so that he or she will do the tricks after seeing your hand signal or receiving the verbal command.
Most dogs don’t take very long to get the hang of it because they recognize quickly that when they do the trick they get the treat. This makes the training pretty simple, and you can use simple commands as a gateway to other tricks. One example might be using the command ‘down’ instead of ‘play dead’. This will be a good starting point, and eventually you can move on to ‘play dead’. ‘stay’, ‘come’, and ‘sit’ will also come naturally to the dog once a little bit of practice is done.
You can try using a favorite toy in the training, and you can do this pretty easily. Hold their toy close to their nose, and then command the dog to jump. The dog will jump, and though it won’t understand at first, it will soon come to realize that “jump” means jump. There will come a time when you don’t even require the toy to get the dog to jump, you can just use the verbal command and/or hand signal.
Your dog’s ability to smell is a huge factor in the training. One thing that you can do is play a little game with your dog that involves hiding a favorite toy or treat and then having them find it. You can start out by putting the toy in a close location so that it’s easy for them to find the object, and when they become more adept at that you can hide it farther away so that they have to work for it. After a while you will be able to use this as a viable trick to entertain your dog as well as any guests that you might have.
Having your dog give you a high five is also great, and the good news is it’s not a hard trick for a dog to pull off. The majority of dogs will just hand you their paw as soon as you show them your hand, but for those that don’t there might be a little more work involved. You may need to teach them several times, and make sure you give them a treat every time they do it properly so that they know there’s an actual reason to do it for you!
Sometimes you may find that the dog doesn’t lift its pay when you want it to, in which case you’ll have to resort to other measures. You’ll have to physically lift their paw, but make sure you praise them and give them a treat. After a while they’ll do it immediately without you lifting the paw as long as they know there is a treat for them.
There are a few other things that you can expand on once you’ve taught the dog a few tricks. One thing that you can do is expand the high five into a way to make them sit up. You can do this by compelling them to raise both paws, at which point they’ll just sit up. Once you’ve gotten them to do this, make sure you give them a treat.
Training a dog can be fun, and it has a few other benefits as well. By training your dog and spending time with him or her you will create a strong bond. You and your dog will become very close and you both will be a lot happier!
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