Tricks & Treats: How to Train Your Dogs to Do the Basics

If you’ve been to the dog park, chances are you’ve seen people cavorting about with their well-trained dogs, prompting them to do all manner of neat tricks in exchange for little baked bone-shaped biscuits.

Undoubtedly, you love your own sweet dog, but maybe you can’t help but feel a little twinge of jealousy when you consider that all your dog seems to know how to do is eat, sleep, use the dog door, and remind you of when it’s time for feeding. But, fear not! Teaching a few basic dog tricks is a rather simple task, and you’ll soon find out that you can, indeed, teach an old dog new tricks.

Teaching a dog to sit is usually the first trick a dog will learn, and it forms the base from which most other tricks are performed. While you could push on the dog’s rear end and give it a treat once the motion is performed, it’s far more effective and meaningful to let your dog learn the action for itself.

• Show the dog the treat in your hand. Make sure it gets a whiff of it, and then its attention will be on the treat.
• Raise your hand above the dog’s head while telling it to sit, and it should naturally sit down while tracking the treat in your hand.
• Give your dog the treat and a heaping of praise for sitting!
• Repeat, repeat, repeat. Eventually, the dog will put two and two together with the command and the action, and they’ll be sitting with just your word.

Stay is like an extended sit, when you think about it, but it’s probably the hardest new command to teach an excited dog. Most dogs are happy and excitable and constantly want to be by your side, but, with some work, you’ll teach your dog how to sit in one spot like the best of them!

• Have your dog sit, and then hold your hand out in front of you while commanding “Stay.”
• Walk away from your dog. Not too far; just far enough that your dog can succeed.
• After a few seconds, give your dog a treat and plenty of praise.
• Repeat, moving farther and farther away each time.