The 5 Most Useful Tricks To Train Your Dog Or Puppy

If you are looking at training your dog or puppy the most useful tricks, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s the dog tricks that will help keep your dog loyal and safe.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. It turns out, they were wrong! Everybody who’s fortunate enough to have a pooch in their life has one for different reasons. You might have picked up a new pup from a breeder, or adopted from a home.

Your pup might be fresh from the litter or a more mature dog looking for a loving family. Whatever the circumstance, the key is to be patient and build a rapport with your dog first before you start training.

If you’re just starting out with dog training, you’ll likely already have a couple of dog obedience tricks on your list.

Simple and useful tricks to teach dogs

Teach these five habits and you’ll have a happy, obedient pup in no time – regardless of its age. These are tricks that are basic, but go beyond the basic. It’s not about toilet training, which is a huge category of it’s own. It’s not about crate training, which takes times and patience. It’s not about stopping them barking, because you may have your own ideas about whether that’s something you want or not.

These useful Dog tricks are about giving you dog the training it needs to stay safe, be good at the vets, not rush onto traffic, and keep them active, healthy and happy.

It’s about easy, quick to learn tricks, using treats and reward systems that will help your dog be a ‘good boy’ time and time again.

Sitting and Down

Arguably the most basic, these tricks are similar and once you do one, it’s easy enough to do the other. How to teach a dog sit or down is one of the most important, and easiest, tricks to teach puppy dogs.

1. Whilst standing, hold a treat by his nose
2. Arc your hand over his head. As (s)he follow the treat in your hand, this will hopefully encourage him to sit.
3. Reward him instantly the moment his bum sits fully on the floor by giving him the treat.
4. Once he has done this a few time, insert the term ‘sit’ once he sits and then reward him.
5. After a while, this will become ingrained and he will associate the term sit with sitting down and getting a reward.

You can do a similar training for ‘down’, except you start in the sitting position and move the treat down from the nose. This helps when at the vets.

Wait or Stay

Consider how many times you might be out in crowded places, with distractions all around you. A simple ‘wait’ could stop your dog from running into traffic or attacking others if it’s feeling anxious. Pick one of the commands and stick with it.

1. Ask your dog to ‘sit’ or ‘down’ (give a treat)
2. Choose a hand signal (an open palm for example)
3. Say ‘wait’ with the signal, wait a few seconds, then reward with a treat. Do not reward if they move out of position.
4. Keep practice, over multiple sessions, lengthening the amount of time between saying ‘wait’ and the rewards.
5. Once they can wait for 20 to 30 seconds, start by taking one step back. Slowly move away as they follow the cue further and further away, for longer times.
6. Practice in lots of different places – including the local park with other dogs around and distractions.
7. Eventually, you should be able to make him wait, standing, with just a gesture and/or command.

It’s important that you set up your dog to win, not to fail. So if you see that he is about to move or break, reward him before he does, or go back to less time for longer. Positive rewards work better than negative experiences.

Responding to its name/“come”

We all know the panic when you let the dog off the leash in the woods and you can’t find them. Learning to respond to its name is one of the most useful tricks to teach your dog, if not just to avoid panic! No matter how far away he/she is, if there’s the thought of a reward waiting with Mummy/Daddy, your pup will return.

1. Have incentives in your pocket at all times – treats or toys. Make this exercise a ‘game’.
2. Run away a few paces, call his name and then say ‘come’ in a friendly and excited way. Stay low down to encourage them to come to you.
3. When he comes to you, bring him closer to you with the treat, hold his collar gently as you feed him his treat.
4. Gradually increase the distance. Only call the dogs when you are going to reward him, never if you are angry. This will create a negative connection, and he will run away from his name or the ‘come’ command.
5. You can ask someone to hold the dog, and then walk away and give the ‘come’ command as they run towards you. Don’t forget to hold their collar as you give them a treat, as you don’t want them to run away the moment they’ve snapped up their reward.

One last piece of advice: don’t recall your dog only to put them on the lead. They will associate ‘come’ with fun ending, and therefore, negativity. It’s better, at first, to simply put them on a long lead to begin with, giving them freedom to roam, and then if they don’t come back, you can step on the lead or simply pull them pack to you.

Fetch

Remember when we mentioned that tricks can improve your dog’s fitness? This is definitely the most fun trick training for dogs, and could even get your steps in too!

You need to start by familiarising your dog with the fetch toy. Try playing with it indoors so your dog can get used to its smell. You’ll find that teaching them to fetch the toy is easy, getting them to come back and drop is harder. Which is why good ‘recall’ or ‘come’ command is important.

1. Introduce the fetch toys (say a ball). Get excited about it. If they come near it, touch it, nose it, or go for it. give them a treat. Make them LOVE this toy.
2. Start moving the toy around. Don’t throw it necessarily (unless your dog has a natural aptitude to go fetch it now they love it), but each time your dog touches the toy once you’ve moved it away, give them a treat. Get them to understand that touching this toy, wherever it is = rewards.
3. Now it’s time to give them rewards for taking the toy in their mouth. The moment they do that, reward. This may take a little time. If they pick up the toy, get Super Happy and excited.
4. Play indoor fetch. Now they know that holding the toy in their mouth they get a reward, start throwing it, even just a meter, and reward it when they pick it up with their mouth.
5. Throw the toy further and further away. Your dog may come back naturally to get its treat, or it may forget in the fun of it. At this point use the come command to get them to come back, or use a long lead to get them to come back.
6. You can start adding words like ‘fetch’ when they start running to fetch the toy if you wish.
7. Take the game outside! Start in an enclosed space, like a garden, and eventually you can move it to the park.
8. You can add the drop command later on, when they enjoy the game for the sake of the game and no longer need treats to fetch and bring back the toy. The joy of the game is the reward. If at any point they drop the ball, use the word ‘drop’ and reward. They will soon learn the game can ONLY continue if they drop the ball. Don’t force the ball out of their mouth, they will think it’s part of the game.

Word of warning: not all dogs are built or interesting in playing fetch. And that’s ok. There are plenty of other fitness exercises you can use, including running with your dog, to keep them healthy . This is just one of the easiest ways for you to get them running and playing, if that’s what they like.

Leave it!

Not the most fun dog trick, leave it discourages your dog from having bad manners. How many times have you sat down to dinner only to see your pooch’s ears prick up?

While you shouldn’t feed your dog from your own plate, you also need to be able to train your dog not to demolish food while your back is turned, or start chewing on a shoe out of boredom.

This trick is also useful for helping your dog avoid danger, like poisonous plants or broken glass.

1. Offer your dog a tasty treat on your open palm and praise them when they eat it.
2. Next hold your treat in your hand in a fist. Your dog will nudge, lick and try and get it. Ignore them. Wait for them to back off, even momentarily, then as soon as they do this open your hand and treat them.
3. Repeat until he consistently make the choice of moving away from the treat. A side effect of this is that the fist will also become a signal for ‘leave’.
4. Once he consistently moves away from the treat, start using the ‘leave command’, gently, and then treat them and praise them.
5. Advanced training: offer the treat with an open hand and say ‘leave’ if they don’t go for the treat, reward them with a treat you are holding in the other hand. If the dog goes for the treat in your hand, close your fist again.

Shake hands / Paw

This one is great fun for entertaining guests! Is it useful? More than you might think. Don’t forget, not everyone is comfortable around dogs, and if you have a particularly large canine, or maybe a breed with a bad rep, this can help make people smile and more comfortable.

It automatically says “hey, my pup is friendly and well trained, let me introduce you to him.” It can be easier to teach this treat in the sitting position, but they can and should be able to do this trick standing as well.

1. Put a treat in a closed fist, and use a treat to encourage your dog’s paw upwards. If he uses his nose or mouth, lower your hand, even if you have to go to the floor.
2. When he starts to use his paw to try and get the treat out of your hand, the moment his paw touches your hand, open it, praise and give him the treat.
3. Then slowly move your hand upwards, and enforce a verbal command: it could be ‘shake’, ‘paw’, or even ‘how do you do’. They moment that paw touches your hand, reward.
4. Eventually, hold the treat with the other hand, offer your hand with the verbal command. When the paw touches your open hand, give them a treat with your other hand.

After a while, your dog will respond regardless of whether or not you have a treat.

How to train your dog tricks

As with all training, when you are first started keep the sessions short, but do it regularly. It’s better to train for 10 minutes a day, once, twice, five times a day, rather than do a one hour session where your pup may get bored or frustrated.

If (s)he doesn’t get it at first, that’s ok. Be patience. Maybe you need to go back a step. Maybe you need to reaffirm your bond. He won’t want to play and ‘come’ to you calling him, if he doesn’t trust you – this is especially true of abandoned or rescue dogs.

And don’t forget. Once they’ve done the action, praise and reward, give the ‘okay’ cue (ie. say OK) to let them know the training exercise is over, before you start a new exercise. This will reinforce the idea that they need your permission to ‘go off’ – the treat isn’t enough.

The use of clicker training for dogs can also help reinforce the bond between action and reward.

As you can see, learning how to teach dog tricks requires patience, and a whole lot of treats. Get it right and you’ll have hours of fun with a happy, healthy and sociable pup.