My oldest dog, Mercury, is sixteen and a half years old (at the time of this writing) and only ten pounds. He’s my retired service dog, so he absolutely has had a lot of training in his life, and has been defying expectations about what small dogs can and can’t do since he was a little puppy. Now he leads a quiet life of retirement, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have enrichment. Even as his health has gone up and down—he has in the last year lost some of his vision—that doesn’t mean he has stopped trick training. Any time I pull out my treat pouch, he’s ready to go and eager to keep up with his much younger, much bigger sisters. I believe that trick training is a big part of why he has done so well over the years and adjusted so seamlessly to loss of sight. His brain is always active and learning new things. I believe this is part of what has kept him so active and healthy even at his advanced age.
All Shapes and Sizes
Unfortunately, another stereotype that persists around trick training is that it’s only for large dogs, or breeds that are traditionally considered to be “athletic” or “smart,” like border collies. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single dog is capable of learning and having fun with trick training. Not only can dogs never be too old to learn new tricks, trick training is something that dogs of all sizes, breeds, and builds can have fun participating in. Small dogs can be excellent trick dogs just as larger dogs can. People mistakenly think that tricks are only for large dogs, but they really aren’t! While some dogs are physically more suited to certain tricks—for example, I don’t want my hundred-pound puppy learning to jump into my arms—there are tricks that are safe and fun for all dogs.
All dogs can learn tricks.
Photo credit: Veronica Tan
At the end of the day, trick training is about building your relationship with your dog. The relationship that you and your dog have with one another is something that is continually evolving and growing. The more quality time you spend together, actually engaging with your dog, the stronger a relationship you will have. It breaks my heart when I hear people say that their dog is dumb, or incapable of learning. Your dog is brilliant—they’re just waiting for you to help them understand what you want, and training is the way to go about that. Trick training won’t solve behavior problems you might be having, but it will strengthen the relationship you have with your dog and cut down on nuisance behaviors your dog might be getting into out of boredom or being under-stimulated.
Trick training isn’t just parlor tricks. Trick training is about relationship building and confidence-boosting, not only for our dogs, but for us as well! Sometimes it can feel overwhelming or discouraging to be responsible for the welfare, education, and care of a dog. I hear this a lot, especially from people deep in the throes of puppy socialization, or from individuals who have rescued an adult dog who may have had a traumatic start in life and is coming with some baggage. Working with your dog can feel discouraging as you work through behavioral challenges or develop appropriate management strategies to keep your dog and others safe. It can be easy to miss the little ways that you are building a stronger bond with your dog or making small, incremental growth in training. Tricks can be a quick and easy way to build your dog’s confidence and your confidence as a teacher, and, most importantly, to have fun together.
All day every day, we are teaching our dogs; we’re educating them about what we want in terms of behavior in any given situation. It’s a huge responsibility, it can feel overwhelming, but it can also be a lot of fun. I’ve never met a dog who isn’t capable of enthusiastically learning. Tricks (including competitive trick titling) are accessible to differently abled dogs, including dogs who are deaf, blind, or have mobility issues. Because of the diversity of tricks that you can teach your dog, there are tricks that will fit the specialized needs and limitations of any dog.
Are you sold? Let’s get started training tricks! To get started, you need to figure out how your dog wants to be paid. Yes, you have to pay the dog! Put your wallet away—money might be motivating to you, but it won’t likely be very motivating for your dog (not to mention that coins are a choking hazard). For teaching tricks, you’ll be paying your dog in currency that is valuable to dogs: food and toys.
What You Need
Treats—when you work, you want to get paid. So does your dog! Treat training is really important. I sometimes hear people say that they don’t want to train with treats because they want their dog to work for the sure joy of working with them…do you work just because you get satisfaction from working? Probably not. Your dog is the same way—they want to get paid for their work and they deserve to be paid. Yes, our dogs love us, but we need to keep building that relationship and “paying” or rewarding our dogs for a job well done.
As you start getting ready to begin trick training, your first task will be to find out what different levels of reward look like to your dog. For many dogs, the smellier, softer treats are going to have the highest value. Either commercially manufactured treats or things like hot dogs and string cheese are the favorites of most of my dogs, but each dog is different. My youngest dog is most excited by dry biscuits (why, no one knows!). What matters most is that your dog thinks what you are offering is high-value, so try out different treats and note what gets your dog the most excited.
Sometimes finding your dog’s currency requires a little bit of trial and error. It also might require you to do some carrying of treats—what is high-value today might be less high-value tomorrow, so you’ll have to pull out something else. I like to rotate the treats I’m giving when training among different high-value ones. Find your dog’s currency—even if it isn’t high-value to you, it might be to them! Different dogs will find different things valuable. Try different treats and play to see what motivates your dog most and use that. As you are finding your dog’s currency, also experiment with play and toys. You’ll still need to have high-value treats for some training, but for some tricks, if your dog is toy-motivated, start to incorporate different toys. A lot of working dogs, like search and rescue, police, and military dogs, work for play and toys (retrieve, and especially tug), so if your dog is most excited about toys, they are in good company.
Even if toys are the highest-value reward to your dog, you will want to have a variety of treats available when you’re training—you can even incorporate your dog’s kibble into your training! Just reserve kibble or other lower-value treats for practicing trick skills that your dog is already confident and having fun with, and pull out the higher-value treats when you are teaching something new, or practicing in a new or more distracting location.
Safety First
If you are training outside and not in a fenced yard, it’s important to always have your dog on leash. The best thing to have is a plain six-foot nylon or leather leash. Avoid retractable leashes, because they can cause a lot of injury to you and/or your dog and don’t give you a lot of control over where your dog is. Following leash laws is a simple but important part of being a good canine citizen. Dogs aren’t robots; even if you think your dog has a good recall, they likely don’t—if another animal ran past and you called your dog, would he immediately turn and return to you? If yes, that’s fantastic, but still keep the leash on, for the comfort and safety of other dogs and members of the community. Following leash laws, scooping poop, and keeping your dog(s) close to you and under your control helps to make the general public more accepting of us having our dogs with us in (dog-friendly) places, and keeps places dog-friendly and welcoming to all of our dogs. You’ll also want to have your dog on a collar, head halter, or chest harness. Safe options include flat collars (nylon or leather), limited-slip martingales (which tighten down to a point that keeps a dog from backing out of a collar, but don’t