Cool Tricks to Teach Your Dog – Waterproof Dog Beds

Posted on March 6, 2022

Cool Tricks to Teach Your Dog – Waterproof Dog Beds

Here are some pointless tricks to teach your dog in a shallow effort to impress your friends! These tricks, however useless, help create a deeper bond between you and your dog and will act as a form of mental and physical stimulation when you need to deplete their batteries. Continuously adding to their repertoire of commands keeps your dog’s brain sharp and will undoubtedly improve their engagement with you on other, more important commands like ‘sit’, ‘stay’, and ‘leave it’. However, the main reason is obviously to shamelessly show off in front of your friends…

Rollover

Start with your dog lying down and coax them into a roll by using a treat in front of their nose. Lead their head to the side and upwards to get them to lean back into the roll. As is the case with all dog training, timing is key. So, the second they roll say “yes” and pay them with a treat. You can then add in the command, which you can choose yourself. We use “rollover”, but I’ve seen some trainers use funny phrases like “sausage roll” or even different languages. Say the command as your dog is performing the roll and integrate a hand gesture as you move away from luring with the treat. Once they understand the command without having to lure them, it’s just a case of practicing and then testing it beside unrelated commands like “sit” or “watch”. It’s harder for your dog to remember the command if it’s in between other commands and if you can keep challenging them they’ll enjoy the process and engage with you much more. You want to stay in that sweet spot in between making it too easy and too hard.

You can teach “spin” in the same way by luring your dog round in a circle and merging that into a hand gesture. I would recommend, as a final progression, alternating between “spin” and “rollover” because they are two easily confused commands so practicing them side by side will help distinguish them in your dog’s mind.

Wipe Your Nose

“Wipe your nose” is a cute trick that’s easy to teach if you know how. Begin by placing some sticky tape on your dog’s nose and reward with a treat when they inevitably use their paw to try and remove it. Make sure the tape is not too sticky by sticking it to something else first. If it’s straight from the roll it might pull out some fur when they try and remove it, ouch! As you present the treat, remove the tape if they haven’t already and repeat. The next progression is to gently scratch the area that you had been applying the tape without actually putting it on. Hopefully they’ll repeat the wipe which you should immediately reward in the same way. Then do the scratching action without actually making contact and progress by repeating with your hand further and further away. Then you can turn the hand gesture and command to anything you like, we scratch our own nose because it’s funny when he copies it. Again, make it harder by dropping it in between other commands and keep your dog on their toes by throwing it in randomly outside of training sessions. Always be prepared to go back a step if need be and get the tape out again. It’s unlikely that you’ll move in one linear order of progression when training any trick.