Teach Dog Tricks

Use dog cookie recipes to help teach dog tricks. Dogs are food motivated and will learn more easily if you use healthy pet treats. A bored dog gets into trouble; teach dog tricks to keep your pet occupied (such as teach a dog to fetch or sit).

Teaching your dog to do tricks is not very hard. It does however take a fair amount of love, patience and understanding. When you teach your dog to do tricks you are bonding with your dog. You are also helping your dog to use his or her brain and preventing boredom.

One of the fastest ways to a dog's heart is FOOD! Dogs love food and most of them don't care what kind of food it is. If they can eat it they will do whatever they can to get a hold of it.

Before you begin teaching your dog tricks, you should invest in some healthy dog treats (either homemade or organic and natural). If you allow your dog to eat human food then some human treats work well also.

My dog happens to love rice cereal treats and dog biscuits (I've got some great dog cookie recipes I make), but some dogs have more expensive taste and prefer steak instead!

Once you have some treats on hand, then you can begin teaching your dog to do tricks.

One of the most useful tricks that you can teach your dog is sit. Teaching your dog to sit will make your life much easier in the long run:

• Stand with your dog in front of you and tell the dog to sit. Accompany the command with a hand gesture (bend your arm at the elbow, raise your hand - palm side facing you, tuck your elbow in to your side, and hold).
• If the dog sits, quickly give him or her one of the treats.

• If the dog does not sit, let him or her smell the treat. Now bring the treat up to right above the dog's head. The dog will follow the treat with his nose, and you need to almost encourage him to back up to get the treat. 9 times out of 10 the dog will end up in a sitting position.
• Once the dog is sitting immediately give a treat.
• You should keep practicing sit on a daily basis. Use different treats and mix it up a bit. Every once in a while don’t give the dog a treat at all, just scratch him on the head and tell him what a good boy he is.

Dogs respond well to a high pitched, excited voice. When your dog does something that you are proud of, you should always praise her in this tone. Dogs don’t speak English, but they do understand tone. Try telling your dog how ugly he is in your high pitched excited voice and I bet he will wag his tail and lick you!

Another trick that is helpful for your dog to know is stay. This is much easier to teach after you have taught your dog to sit.

• Have the dog sit and then tell him to stay. As you say the stay command word, hold your hand out - this time with the palm facing your dog.
• Begin with a count of 5 seconds, then release the dog (give a release command and hand motion) and then give your dog a treat.
• You can add a few seconds every time. But watch your dog very carefully; you are looking to anticipate the dog breaking out of the stay.
• You want the dog attuned and listening to your command. Do not let the dog break out of position - release the dog as soon as you see her getting ready to move. Work your way up to one minute, then two minutes.
• If the dog moves DO NOT reward him. He only gets rewarded if he does the trick.
• Once he has mastered stay with you in front of him, try taking a step away from him. I know many dogs that have learned to stay even while their master has gone into a different room!

To teach a dog to fetch is more complicated (for the longest time, my dog had me trained to fetch!) but can be accomplished once he or she knows the basics (sit, stay, and come).

• Your dog needs to be on a long leash.
• Have your dog sit beside you and throw the ball or Frisbee or toy a short distance away.
• As you throw, use the word fetch (or whatever word you chose to use - however use that word consistently).
• As soon as you've thrown the object walk towards the toy and stop in front of it.
• Wait for your dog to pick up the toy. When he or she does pick it up, immediately recognize and reinforce (say 'yes').
• If your dog doesn't pick it up, then place the toy in your dog's mouth to demonstrate what you expect.
• Keep repeating the actions and reinforcing the outcomes.

One of the most important habits to develop in all of your dog training work is to be consistent and to do the training regularly.

If you're not consistent, you undermine your own dog training efforts. To teach dog tricks effectively, you need to be training and reinforcing regularly and frequently; otherwise your dog will simply forget.

Training your dog will help it from being bored: a bored dog usually gets into trouble and into other bad habits.

Hopefully these basic dog tricks will help you gain a better understanding of how to teach dog tricks. Most of these strategies can be implemented with other training as well. Just remember to be patient and never punish your dog for not doing a trick. Dogs tend to respond best to positive reinforcement.

If you want to teach dog tricks (and have your pet learn tricks and learn good dog behavior,) you need to ensure that your dog is healthy. Feed your pet healthy, homemade dog food. Make dog cookie recipes that include healthy ingredients, like sweet potatoes or brown rice along with high value protein.

Also watch your dog for allergic reactions or sensitivities; in our highly industrial societies dogs are developing more allergies than ever before. See your veterinarian if you suspect that your dog has developed an allergic reaction to food or to his/her environment.

If your pet has developed allergies, we recommend PetAlive Allergy Itch Ease. It temporarily relieves skin allergies and itch. And your pet will feel better with treatment, and listen better when training.

Read More:

Visit Dog Training Tips to understand more about how to train your dog.

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