Proud of My Dog

Trick Training: Discover the Benefits

Key Topics

Seven Ways that Trick Training will Benefit You and Your Dog
Practical, Real-world Applications
Are All Tricks Suitable for Every Dog
Teach Your Dog a Fun Trick

Did you know that all cued behaviours are tricks to your dog? We might categorize behaviours like ‘sit’, ‘stay’, and ‘down’ as obedience behaviours and ‘spin’, ‘paws on’, and ‘high five’ as tricks but your dog doesn't know the difference.

Once you understand this perspective, you can:

Adjust your mindset from “my dog must do this obedience behaviour” to “let’s have fun training together”
Relax and enjoy the training process

If you are relaxed, the fun factor will increase for you and your dog. The more fun you have when working with your dog, the more training you will do. The more training you do, the more your dog will find engaging with you a “get to do” activity instead of a “have to do” activity.

Once you have a trick training mindset, you can start to see the benefits of training any behaviour and have fun with the process.

Seven Ways that Trick Training will Benefit You and Your Dog

Great for mental enrichment

Dogs enjoy solving puzzles, learning something new, and engaging with you.

Trick training touches on each of these types of enrichment.

Figuring out what will earn them reinforcement provides a puzzle solving challenge
The variety that comes with learning new things engages their interest
Earning reinforcement (either food or toy play) increases the value of engaging with you

Dogs who have a mentally enriched life are less likely to find other ways (usually ways we don’t like) to amuse themselves.

If you have a dog who is housebound due to illness, injury, or high anxiety when outside, they will benefit from the time spent teaching tricks. You can ward off boredom by training tricks appropriate to their condition.

Don’t underestimate the power of mental enrichment to tire your dog out. Problem solving can be just as tiring as a walk with both leading to a long nap!

10" hooked mat. Designed and hooked by Heather Fox

Improve mental flexibility

Mental flexibility is the ability of your dog to:

Go with the flow
Make adjustments as the situation requires
Take instructions they weren’t expecting
Be flexible in a training session or out on a walk

Tricks can teach your dog to adjust to changes in the learning process which increases their mental flexibility. Once their mental flexibility grows, they will start to apply the learning in other parts of their life:

Unexpectedly changing direction on your walk
Problem solving in new environments
Increasing their confidence to learn new things

Can you spin to the right, how about the left? Can you put one foot in the box, how about all four feet. Once you are in the box can you sit?

The more your dog learns, the easier it is to learn, try new things, and enjoy doing it. Your dog will be empowered to experiment making them more flexible and adaptable to whatever life will throw at them.

Build confidence

Confidence is when your dog is certain they can handle whatever obstacle is before them including trying to figure out what you want so they can earn the yummy chicken you have in your pocket!

Taking your tricks to a variety of locations will grow your dog’s confidence when faced with novel environments.

For dogs that are nervous about new places, the tricks they enjoy can become power poses! Feeling a little uncertain, can you put your two paws on this park bench.

Activating the thinking part of your dog’s brain will shift them from “where’s the danger” to “where’s the opportunity”. This will increase their confidence and help to make the environment and the situation less stressful for your dog.

The more your dog learns, the faster their confidence will grow. Each new behaviour learned is a problem solved, and each problem solved brings about a positive outcome for them. Confidence brings about more confidence and a confident dog is much better at handling any novelty that the world can throw at them.

Grow engagement with you

Tricks teach your dog to play in and around and through you making you more interesting.

The more your dog knows, the more you can mix things up when you are out and about together. You become unpredictable and that makes you more interesting.

If you are more interesting to your dog, that means you can start competing with the squirrel and other distractions in the environment and win!

Build teamwork

Anything positive that you do with your dog will grow their desire to engage and work with you. More focus, attention, and engagement with you make for a great team and that translates into a dog who wants to be with you.

A dog who wants to be with you is also a dog who will walk nicely on a leash and come when called.

Improve fitness, stretching and strength

Many tricks require your dog to learn how to bend and rotate in different directions, put weight on their front or back feet, or move their back feet while their front feet remain stationary.

Did you know that:

A sit to stand improves limb range of movement, increases hindlimb muscle mass and strength, and increase core strength.
Lifting a paw when standing improves core strength and balance and increases the leg’s range of motion improving joint health.
Spinning right and left has your dog bending through their back which improves their spinal range of movement as well as stretching the muscles that run either side of the spine.

Practical, Real-world Applications

Here are some ways that trick training can help with more practical situations.

If you step out your front door and your dog is mentally down the street and around the corner chasing the squirrel, bring your dog’s brain back into the moment by practicing some of your easy tricks. Once you have your dog’s brain, start your walk.
Tricks such as a chin rest can be used to help with handling and husbandry behaviours.
Make vet visits less stressful by practicing your dog’s favourite tricks in the lobby or exam room.
The trick of ‘stand between your legs’ will keep people from reaching out to touch your dog or keep your dog from rushing up to engage with people.

Are all Tricks Suitable for Every Dog?

Not every trick is suitable for every dog. It’s important to understand this. Age, breed and physical condition may mean some tricks are not appropriate for your dog. If in any doubt about the suitability of a trick for your dog’s age, breed or physical condition, seek the advice of a qualified professional.

Teach your Dog a Fun Trick

Foundation trick – follow a food lure (treat magnet)

Many tricks can be taught with a food lure but first you need to teach your dog that following food in your hand is a fun and rewarding game!

Step 1: With food between your thumb and index finger, hold your hand in front of your dog’s nose, palm up. Keep your hand level with their natural nose height and neck alignment. As your move your hand forward, your dog will stretch toward the food. Release a treat. With practice your dog will start to take a step, release a treat.

Aim to keep your dog’s nose right on the food so they stay connected to your hand as you move it forward.

Step 2: Keep your hand moving and release the food to reward your dog’s focus and decision to follow your hand. At first, release food for every step then start to mix up the number of steps your dog takes before you release the food.

Step 3: As your dog starts to take more steps, vary the speed of your hand movement so your dog is changing their pace to keep their nose on the food. Build up momentum as your dog begins to show more persistence and grit. Change direction to keep your dog guessing and focused on your hand.

Tips:

Food value: find out what your dog really wants. This will help them stay with your hand!

Easy wins: Lure for a few steps and then release the food by throwing it ahead of your dog. This will provide and energy injection and build in pressure release moments for dogs who might be feeling stressed or uncertain about the activity.

Food delivery: Hold multiple pieces of food in your hand and practice moving the food from your palm to the spot between your thumb and index finger. You want your delivery to be seamless so that it doesn’t slow your dog down.

Once your dog can readily follow a food lure, use this foundation trick to teach your dog the Two Paws On trick

Conclusion

Trick training has so many positive benefits for both you and your dog. Tricks are an excellent way to:

Grow your dog’s ability to learn new things
Increase your dog’s ability to engage with you in a wide variety of situations and novel environments
Grow your relationship
Build your dog’s confidence and mental flexibility
Provide mental enrichment and improve fitness.