Tricks, Games, Sports

Any chance you’d like to transform your dog walks from frustrating leash-pulling contests of strength to enjoyable and cooperative outings?

Scent work is a natural way for dogs to enjoy a game and be enriched.

Vested interests

Sometimes we need to take things away from our dog and that’s when the trade trick becomes vital. Here’s how to teach your dog to trade.

If competition isn’t your thing, you can do a simpler activity at home with your dog that we call Nose Games. You can do...

The "search me!" game uses lots of energy and can tire out your very active dog, and offers very practical applications as well. Start with treats, since most dogs will happily look for food. You can eventually ask him to look for hidden objects (favorite toys, your lost keys) and even hidden or missing humans!

At a performance by The Marvelous Mutts, as the name suggests, you won't see any pedigreed dogs, but you will definitely witness focused owners and competitive dogs! Looking at a photographic gallery of The Marvelous Mutts, one could easily be confused with having found the listing for a rescue promoting their mixed-breed adoption candidates. Instead, it's an inspiring model, both for what rescue dogs can do and what highly motivated dog owners can do for shelter and rescue dogs.

Our dogs have very little opportunity for choice in their lives in today's world. We tell them when to eat, when to play, when...

When your dog has learned how to search, this makes a great rainy day indoor exercise activity. You can also routinely scatter her meals around the yard so she has to search through the grass to find them; put her on a long line if you don't have a fence. You can also name her favorite toys and have her find them. You can even have family members and friends hide and have her find them.

too! Just about any dog

we start with shaping that behavior and backchain to the completed "Fetch" behavior.üGradually

A couple of decades ago, when positive reinforcement-based training was in its infancy, we were quite sensitive to criticism from the dog training community about this new permissive" style of dog training. When we began encouraging people to play tug with their dogs