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.

Luring “Rollover”

Luring “Rollover”

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.

Teaching “Wipe Your Nose” *sorry for the photo quality!*

Play Dead

Lure this trick in exactly the same way as rollover but stop once your dog is on their side. A good tip is to train “play dead” in the opposite direction to “rollover”. For example, if you’ve trained them to “rollover” to their left then train them to play dead by falling to their right. This will make it clearer in their head which trick they are performing and will save you some frustration further down the line when they inevitably confuse the two commands. Don’t be too precious about how dramatic the fall looks, get the basics right first and then you can work on the details. For example, later on you can start only rewarding for when they keep their head on the floor for a few seconds after the instruction, or only reward for closed eyes etc. You’ll have an Oscar-worthy collapse in no time!

“Play dead”

Close the Door

This one is super easy. Just lure them up the door with a treat and it will close under their weight. Replace the treat lure with a gentle tap on the door and eventually add in a command. With all tricks a good progression is to give them the command from further away but particularly for this one because it means you’ll be able to stay on the couch whilst they close the door for you. If you need them to pull the door rather than push it then you should attach a toy that they can grab to the door handle. Play tug with this toy (whilst attached to the handle) and reward every time they grab and pull. Progress by making the toy less exciting (by moving it around less) and still reward for a grab and pull. When they get the hang of it, see if they can grab the toy without any physical interaction from you at all in return for a treat. It goes without saying that the toy must be low enough for them to grab without having to jump up, otherwise they’ll be pushing with their paws in the wrong direction. Then add the command “close the door” and increase distance to make it harder.

Luring “Close the Door”

And that’s it! Remember there are tons of dog training videos on the internet so just google it if anything is unclear in my descriptions. Good luck!

P.s… Got that dog smell in your living room? Use a Waterproof Dog Bed!

If your living room starts to smell like wet dog, you could do with investing in a waterproof dog bed. The problem with porous material is that when your damp dog comes in from their walk, that moisture gets absorbed into the stuffing which makes it smell. That moisture evaporates from the surface of a waterproof dog bed and never penetrates the middle, so you don’t get the same stink from it over time. If the surface of your waterproof dog bed smells you can easily wipe it off or hose it down outside. The other reason that they smell less is that dog hairs carry odours in bulk and they don’t stick as easily to waterproof dog beds.