Entertaining Your Dog At Home: Training

Training and games are a great way to bond with your dog as well as giving them the mental stimulation they require. A good training session can tire out your dog as much as a walk so can be very useful if your dog has a lot of energy but you can’t leave the house. You can use training sessions to work on obedience or you can teach new tricks. Here are some important tips for planning a training session.

Make it fun for both you and your dog. Your dog will respond quicker and enjoy training more if it is done in a fun and positive way. If you reward your dog for good behaviour, they are more likely to repeat it and they will enjoy the session much more.

Break up the training with lots of play. This can be used as a reward but also stops your dog getting bored or frustration with doing the same thing. Take breaks and come back to training later.

Do your research and keep it simple. Whether you are teaching obedience or a new trick it is important that you are giving clear signals to avoid confusing your pup. If your dog gets confused and frustrated, they are less likely to want to continue. Progress slowly and reward for little improvements to keep your dog engaged and encouraged.

Here are some ideas for fun training session you can do with your dog.

Sit and Stay – this is basic obedience skill that is great for your dog to learn.

Using a treat in front of your dog’s nose slowly raise it over the head to lure their nose up, this should encourage your dog's back end to lower. Mark and reward when their bum hits the floor. Repeat and they should start sitting quicker and without needing to follow the lure. You can then introduce the cue.

When your dog knows sits you can start introducing stay. Ask your dog to sit and wait a second before treat. Encourage them to move about briefing and then repeat. Gradually increase the amount of time they wait for a treat, once they can wait 5 seconds you can add the cue ‘stay’.

If your dog already knows stay you can increase the difficulty by adding distance or distractions. Remember if your dog starts to struggle to go back a step.

Weave through legs – this is a fun trick for you and your dog to learn.

Start with your dog front of you and be stood with your legs apart. With treats in one hand encourage our dog to walk between your legs, front to back, mark and reward for this. Some dogs may find is difficult so take your time and use lots of encouragement.

Once they are happy going between your legs you can begin to lure them around one side, using treat guide them around one of your legs. Mark and reward. Keep practicing around one leg until they are confident. Finally start asking them to go back through and around the other way. At this point you may still be rewarding the different sections, slowly reduce the treats and hand motions so it becomes one smooth movement.

Agility or obstacle course – agility is a great mental and physical exercise for your dog and you can easily do it at home.

Set up simple obstacles for your dog such as poles to jump or walk over, cones or obstacles to weave between, or a small tunnel. Remember a new object can be difficult for dogs so be patient and give them plenty of time to sniff around each obstacle. Encourage your dog to go over and round the obstacles with plenty of rewards along the way. Make it as easy as possible for your dog at the start and increase slowly. For example, if you are making a tunnel start with it uncovered or a very short distance as the dog learns to go through, when they are comfortable with it you can increase the difficulty slowly. Work with one obstacle before moving on to another.

There are so many fun training videos and ideas you can find online. Just be sure they are using reward based training and remember to keep in simple and take breaks.

Feel free to message me with any questions.

Have fun.