If you are looking to teach your dog some new tricks there are a few pointers that may help your furry friend develop faster.
You want to encourage growth and development, dogs want to learn and if you show them that you want them to learn too, they are likely to respond to your training.
Create an atmosphere where a dog can learn, make mistakes and work towards their new tricks – whether it be a party trick like rolling over and standing up or the more essential training needs, recall, stay, not pulling your arm out of its socket while on a lead…
With some simple, fairly easy changes in place, you can help your dog’s training come on leaps and bounds.
Here are some simple tricks that you can implement into your dog’s lifestyle which will have them showing off tricks of their own in no time!
Routine
Don’t try to train your dog on its daily walk/s, that is their time to socialise and get a bit of exercise in.
Slot in a time and find a set place, preferably quiet with minimal distractions and work on training there.
Eventually, your dog will make the link between that space and learning (and treats if they do well!) so they will be in the right mind frame for learning new tricks.
Start training with tricks that you know they can do; sit, lie down, drop the ball – it gets them off to a good start and encourages them to continue learning new tricks.
Dogs love routine so soon enough your dog will know when it’s ‘training time’ and will be raring to go and eager to learn some new tricks.
Play Drive
Developing your dog’s play drive can help you while training. A toy offers a tool that can grab a dog’s attention and focus.
So get yourself something sturdy and implement it into playtime, when you’re training your dog it can really come in handy!
Say there’s a group of people walking by your training space talking loudly and distracting your dog, bring out their favourite toy and that distraction will become white noise in no time.
This is a method firefighters use for their search and rescue dogs – implement it into your own training and turn it into a game, hide their toy and give their nose a workout.
Your dog will love it, it will help you refine its focus and as a bonus, your dog might become a hide and seek champion!
R&R
“I can’t train my dog, he’s way too lazy” Is he? While some dogs may enjoy luxury more than others, they almost always want to get out and learn new things.
Often they aren’t lazy, they are simply tired. Make sure that they are getting enough rest and are training within their attention span.
A 3-hour training session may do more harm than anything else, so keep them short, keep them fun.
Diet can also make a huge difference. Is your dog on a kibble diet? Give raw feeding a try. Kibble is quite heavily processed so sometimes it can be harder to break down.
Raw food is much easier to digest as whole foods can be broken down and used up more easily, many owners say that they see a huge difference in energy levels straight away. Raw feeding is becoming easier now than ever.
Companies like Bella & Duke pre-prep and cover all of the basics so that you don’t have to, ensuring that all their nutritional requirements are met in properly balanced meals.
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