4 Fun Tricks to Teach your Dog! 

One of the best things you can do to improve your relationship with your dog is trick training. While the tricks themselves may not seem beneficial to your dog’s training, trick training actually significantly improves your dog’s behavior. It allows them to practice positive reinforcement which leads to a stronger bond with you. Trick training also builds your dog’s confidence and prevents boredom.  Teaching tricks is fun for you and the dog, which helps your dog enjoy training more and improves your other training sessions. 

Here are four of my favorite beginner level tricks to teach!

• Crawl

Start with your dog in the down position. Hold a treat on the floor right in front of your dog. Slowly drag the treat along the floor so that your dog inches forward to reach it. Once their body moves forward without standing up, mark the behavior with a “yes!” and reward with the treat. (Read more about using reward markers to help your training here.)  Continue to repeat this process of luring until your dog is comfortable following the lure for a few inches. Next, add in the command “crawl” as you begin to slide the treat forward. Build on your progress by gradually increasing the distance your dog crawls before he receives the reward. Over time, you can fade out the lure by using your hand to replicate the lure motion without a treat present and reward from your other hand once the action is completed. Then you can gradually fade to no hand motion and only the verbal command. 

• Roll-over 

To teach roll-over, start with your dog in the down position. Use a food lure and slowly move the treat from right in front of your dog’s nose toward collar/top of shoulder. Some dogs will readily roll-over to follow the treat, if so, mark with a verbal yes and reward with treat. If your dog doesn’t readily follow the treat, break this trick down into multiple steps. First reward if your dog lays over on his side, then build up to requiring a full roll-over to receive the treat. Once your dog can easily follow the lure, begin adding the “roll-over” command. Gradually fade out the food lure by replacing the lure with a hand motion accompanied by the verbal command. 

• Spin

Spin is a great beginner trick to teach because it does not require that the dog know how to sit or lay down prior to learning this command. Start with your dog standing in front of you. Using a food lure, slowly move the treat from in front of your dog’s nose, toward their tail. Mark the behavior with a verbal yes when they complete the full circle and reward with a treat. Be sure to choose whether you want your dog to spin towards the left or the right and lure the same direction each time. For added fun, you can teach your dog that “spin” means turn in a clockwise direction and teach “twist” in the same way but in the opposite (counter clockwise) direction. As your dog understands the command, fade out the food lure and replace with a hand motion with the verbal command. 

• Back

To teach your dog to back up, start with your dog standing in front of you. Slowly take a step towards your dog and reward any small backwards step from your dog. If your dog doesn’t move back when you step into their space, try leaning forward. Rewarding any small movement backwards is key. Next add in the hand signal that you want to use as you step towards your dog. Once your dog is responding to the hand signal with movement, add in the command “back.” The next step is to stop moving forward and just give the hand signal with the verbal command “back”. As your dog progresses, ask him to back further before receiving the treat until he feels comfortable taking several big steps backwards. 

Ready to try it? Grab some treats and get started! 

Remember, training sessions are best kept short. End the session while the dog is still having fun and wanting to train. Sessions should be an upbeat, positive experience. This will create a dog who looks forward to working with you and will be eager to train. 

Let me know your dog’s favorite trick in the comments!