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If you’re anything like me, you love showing people how smart your dog is. Teaching your dog tricks is the perfect way to do this. When guests come over or when we go out, we are always showing off my dog’s many tricks. Most of the time we don’t have a choice, my friend’s love seeing the tricks and don’t take no for an answer. So, I’m always looking for cute tricks to teach my dog. These tricks look impressive but are very easy to teach. If you are looking for cute tricks to teach your dog, keep reading.
To teach your dog tricks, even easy ones, you need to have some small reward treats, be in a quiet suitable place and keep the training sessions to 10 – 15 minutes or your dog will start to get bored. Remember when he gets something right to give him lots of praise and a reward treat. Just be careful not to get him over excited or he will loose his concentration.
Teach Your Dog To Give You His Paw
First get your dog to sit. Then as you say the word ‘paw’ take your dog’s paw in your hand and give the dog a treat. Repeat this several times. After a few times do not take his paw so quickly. Say the word, count to one then take take his paw if he doesn’t offer it to you first. You should notice he is bringing his paw up as you say the word. If he doesn’t do this, go back to saying it at the same time you take his paw. Do it a few more times then slow your response again. After 2 or 3 sessions most dogs pick this one up quite happily.
Teach Your Dog To Give A High Five
The high five, like a lot of tricks is a progression of an earlier trick. In this case, it’s the paw trick. Hold a treat in your fingers and raise your hand slightly higher than you would for the paw trick. Your dog will think you want to do the paw trick and will reach for the treat with his paw as we taught him earlier. As he reaches up you say, “high five” and give him the treat. Once your dog has mastered the paw trick this one should be very easy to learn. With just a few sessions he will be doing it on hand signal rather than voice control.
Teach Your Dog To Jump Through A Hoop
Before you start this one, I would just like to ask you to be a little sensible and not hold the hoop too high. You do not want your dog to hurt himself while doing the trick. Sit your dog on one side of a hoola hoop. Get the dog’s attention on your hand on the other side of the hoop. Take a treat in your hand and give the dog the command to release him from the sit. At first he may attempt to go around or under the hoop. If this happens start again. Your dog wants the treat and will soon learn that going around or under does not get it so he will soon start going through it. When he does say hoop and give him the treat. He will soon be jumping through the hoop on the command of hoop. When I started doing this trick I had a medium sized dog (a Labrador). So I started with the hoop 6 inches from the ground and slowly raised it to knee height. If you have a smaller dog, you might want to start with the hoop touching the ground so the dog just goes through the hoop and then slowly raise it as he gets used to the trick.
Give these tricks a try. I’m sure you will have fun teaching them to your dog.
