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High five is a trick that you can teach your dog.
Lifting their paws, standing on their rear legs or catching treats in the air? You and your dog will become stars with these 10 tricks! Best of all, they don’t just entertain the public, but also challenge your dog physically and mentally. At the same time, practising tricks together strengthens the bond between humans and animals.
If a dog spins in a circle upon command or waves goodbye with its paw, it’s guaranteed to trigger expressions of delight. However, the way your dog feels is much more important than the astonishment of spectators. Thankfully, most dogs are curious by nature. They like to be kept occupied and love being able to let off steam. If they get rewards out of this too such as a treat or stroke of recognition from their owner, the world seems a better place to them.
With the knowledge that practising dog tricks can aid the human-canine bond, many dog owners set ambitious goals. However, it should be clear to you before you start training that not all tricks are suitable for all dogs. Although most dogs are willing to learn to a certain extent – mainly if it benefits them in the form of a reward – their size, physique or weight alone prohibit them from trying some dog tricks. Like us humans, dogs also have individual preferences and dislikes. For instance, you shouldn’t practise rolling with your dog if it doesn’t like lying on its back. If it doesn’t enjoy jumping, you’d be better off forgetting “catching treats in the air”.
The basic requirement for practising dog tricks is both you and your dog having fun in the process. As well, success will come much quicker if the focus is on fun rather than you stubbornly continuing to work on an exercise when your dog would much rather be lying in its basket.
Practising tricks should be a positive experience for your dog. Pressuring your dog is totally out of place. Proceed cautiously and always practise step by step. Be patient and respect your dog’s learning rhythm. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up straight away as soon as your dog doesn’t take part or if a trick doesn’t work from the outset. It’s important to observe your dog closely and learn to evaluate its behaviour. If it loses motivation, you’re best off ending training and carrying on at another point. With time, you will get a good feel for whether your dog is still on the ball or would rather focus on other things. Hence, practising dog tricks also fosters a better understanding of your dog. At the same time, your dog gains trust in you, because you react to its needs. As a result, the tangible success of a dog trick isn’t perfect execution but rather ongoing throughout the whole training process. Consistent, gradual training and small successes now and then foster self-confidence and strengthen the bond between you and your dog.
Mutual trust, reliability and clear commands are the basic tenets of successful dog training. These apply to practising little tricks too. However, something extra is needed to really get dogs enthused by our tricks and rules of the game. Although some dogs have an innate will to please, they can be a bit selfish too. After all, they know that behaving in the desired way will bring them many advantages, whilst unwanted behaviour will be ignored or even punished. With breeds known for a certain stubbornness, you can really see how they consider whether carrying out a command really does prove beneficial for them.
This urge for praise can be taken advantage of in training. Dogs choose the path promising them the greatest success. If a treat is waiting for them when they successfully complete an exercise, this will naturally motivate them to participate. Positive reinforcement through treats, stroking or a dog toy will help you and your dog achieve your goal quicker. It is more reliable than if you pressure your dog or even punish it if it doesn’t complete an exercise according to your wishes. In order for dogs to learn what behaviour is correct and brings the longed-for praise of their owner, the treat should always follow straight afterwards. Dogs live in the present and always relate their owner’s reaction directly to the current situation. It’s also important that you always end a training session on a successful note. If you notice that your dog is still overwhelmed by an exercise, you’re best off going back a few steps. Give a command that your dog can carry out without any problems and reward it at the end. Only then should you end the training session so that your dog will be happy to take part again next time.
The basis for successfully practising the following 10 dog tricks is your dog mastering basic commands like “sit”, “down” or “drop”. Only start with tricks when your dog carries out these basic commands without fail. Also make sure that training starts at the right time. If your dog is tired or hungry, it will certainly show little interest in your tricks. After mealtime, you should give your dog a break of at least an hour to digest its food. Once full and rested, it will definitely be keen to join in with your training session.
The classic dog trick that forms the basis for many more tricks is giving paw. Although this trick is relatively easy to learn, you need patience (and a few treats) for your dog to react without fail.
High fives are no longer solely used by humans as an expression of shared success. It’s no surprise that this trick is becoming more and more popular with dogs too. If your dog has already mastered giving paw, you will be able to teach it this movement relatively quickly.
You can try it all out from a distance later on. Move further and further away from your dog during the exercise so that at some point it can no longer touch your hand when raising its paw. Give it a treat nevertheless as soon as it raises its paw for it to learn that doing this alone is sufficient. If you then stand further away and hold your hand vertically as a greeting, your dog will wave back at you.
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The exercise of a dog standing on its rear legs by raising both front paws from a sitting position is extremely popular. It has to shift its weight backwards in order to do so. It can take a while depending on your dog’s agility for it to find balance in this position and be able to stand on its rear legs without any problems. It’s important that your dog always stays sitting on its rear end during the exercise – if it stands up on all fours, it defeats the object of it.
This exercise comes from dog dancing. The human stands opposite the dog and raises their left and right leg alternately. The dog raises its right and left paw high from its sitting position in sync so that it looks as if the dog and human were marching on the spot together.
The aim of this exercise is initially for your dog to touch an object with its paw and to knock it over. Once it has mastered this, you can then even teach it to open doors with its paw.
In order to teach your dog to close doors, show it the room door and say “touch”. Give your dog a reward if it thereupon touches the door with its paw. For your dog to really close the door, build upon the command with “Touch! Shut the door” and only reward your dog when it has touched the door forcefully enough for it to close. You can gradually increase the distance to the door until it’s sufficient for you to point to the door and call “Touch! Shut the door” from the sofa or a table.
With this trick, your dog will roll over on its back until it is lying in the “down” starting position. Since some dogs don’t like lying on their back, this exercise demands a certain level of agility and patience. Special treats of course also help as a reward.
It can be entertaining to watch your dog crawl along the floor, touching it with its stomach and slowly crawling forwards. However, it could take a few practices until your dog has mastered this trick. After all, crawling isn’t a natural movement for dogs.
In this exercise, your dog rotates from a standing position either to the left or right. Although this movement is unusual at first for some dogs, most will soon follow the exercise when they get the reward they hoped for at the end.
Like with the tap dancing and turning exercises, slalom runs through the legs are a popular element of dog dancing. Even dogs less keen on dancing will have great fun with this trick. However, your dog should reach up to your knees at most. If not, it won’t have a secure position when running through your legs.
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This trick promises action and astonished faces amongst spectators. However, it isn’t easy to carry out and requires a little agility from your dog and plenty of patience.
If you would like to go one better with this trick, you can teach balancing as the second step. Carefully hold your dog’s snout shut with your hand and place a treat on its nose with the other hand. Give it a suitable command, such as “hold” and slowly take your hand away without the treat falling. If your dog manages to keep its head still for a while and balance the treat, reward with the snack. As soon as your dog has mastered catching and balancing, you can connect the two in the final step. Place the treat on your dog’s nose and give it the command to balance. Then say “catch”, which will make your dog try to jump to reach the treat on its nose. Of course, plenty of practice is needed for this trick to work. So be patient! If it doesn’t work, simply take a step back and practise catching and balancing.
Have you noticed that all dog 10 tricks work according to a similar principle? There is a clear command, hand gesture and treat at the end. This can be a treat as described, but an interesting dog toy can also help. Once you have understood this pattern and can correctly assess your dog, you will be able to practice many tricks together. Your dog may learn to jump through your arms or act as if it had fallen dead upon giving the “bang” command. You can also teach your dog practical tricks such as “bring my slippers” with a little practice.
We wish you and your dog plenty of fun practising together!
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