Teaching Dog Tricks

Teaching dog tricks to your favorite pup is a wonderful idea! Not only will your doggie be able to wow your friends at your next soiree, but it will reinforce your bond and relationship with him, and give him fun mental and physical stimulation to brighten up his routine.

If you regularly spend just two 7-minute sessions teaching dog tricks each day, your pup will soon be the toast of the town. Remember to practice the tricks you've taught in the past on a regular basis so your dog stays in top form.

One characteristic of dog tricks is that they tend to involve a series of behaviors that, when performed one after another look very complicated. By breaking the behavior down into smaller chunks, you can teach each behavior individually and then put them together. This is known as "chaining" behaviors in behavioral/learning psychology.

Another important principal to understand before teaching dog tricks is that of reinforcement (reward) versus punishment.

Generally speaking, a reinforcement is a positive sensation. When you are training a dog, give him something that he finds reinforcing right after he does a behavior that you like, and he is more likely to do it again. A reinforcement could be food, praise, petting, playing a game, or a click on a clicker.

The opposite of reinforcement is punishment. A punishing stimulus is something the dog finds unpleasant and an activity followed by a punishment is less likely to be repeated. Punishments could include a firm "no," a shock on an electric collar, a squirt of citronella, or a jerk on the leash or choke chain. Hitting your dog is also a punishment, but not one that I ever recommend that you use, it can seriously damage your relationship with your dog if you hit him with your hand, a newspaper, or any other object. Don't do it.

Think of punishments and rewards as the words "hotter and colder" in that game you used play as a child. Someone would hide an object, and another person would look for it. As you neared the object, your friend would call out "You're getting warmer, you're hot, very hot, you're burning up!" If you went in the wrong direction, away from the object, your friend would say "Colder, you're getting colder, freezing cold!"

Teaching dog tricks is based on this type of communication with your dog, you have limited vocabulary - since he doesn't speak English, you can't tell him what you want him to do, you just have to tell him he's getting warmer or colder - closer or farther to the desired command - based on your presentation of rewarding or punishing stimuli to his environment.

I will point out here, that when you are teaching a dog a new trick, you don't want to introduce any punishment into the scenario. It's not fair to punish a dog before he knows what's expected of him. When you are teaching the dog a trick, try to focus on helping the dog become successful. Reward steps in the right direction, and act neutral (don't reward or punish) actions that are not in the desired direction.

The last thing I want to touch on in this primer on teaching dog tricks is the idea of "shaping" behavior. This one I learned in college psychology class, but don't worry, it's not too advanced.

The idea of "shaping" is that if you want a dog (or other animal) to do a specific behavior, you have to start out rewarding the dog for approximating the behavior. Even if he doesn't do all of what you want, if he's getting closer to doing what you want, reward him for being close. As he starts repeating the behavior similar to what you desire, raise the bar on him a little bit and create more exacting standards for what you will chose to reward.

Here's an example of how to teach a dog trick by breaking it down into simple steps.

If I wanted Kera to jump up on a chair next to the light switch and turn out the light, then run back to me and sit at my feet, that is a complicated "chained" behavior involving many steps.

First I would break down the whole procedure into separate chunks:

1) Jumping onto the chair
2) Raising her paw to flip the switch
3) "Come" recall to the right position

I would have to teach each of these separately using shaping.

To teach her to jump on the chair, I would put the chair in position and give a command like "up" or "Chair." Kera would have no idea what that would mean, so I might use the leash to walk her over to the chair.

Even though she just walked up to the chair and didn't jump onto it, she's getting closer to what I want her to do than she was when she was lying on the carpet after I initially gave the command. She's getting warmer, so initially, I can give her a reward for just approaching the chair (with my help) when I give the command.

After she's approaching the chair consistently, I can start encouraging her to touch the chair with her paw and rewarding her for that behavior.

I slowly up the ante - rewarding her ONLY for behaviors that are closer and closer to what I want her to do.

First she just has to approach the chair. Then she has to touch it with her paw. Then she has to put both paws on the seat. Finally, she will have to get up on the chair in order to receive praise.

This is how you can keep your sessions teaching dog tricks fun and rewarding for you and your dog.

Feel free to help your dog along, placing her or her body parts in the appropriate positions.

If you keep the sessions short and upbeat - with plenty of opportunities for success and rewards, she will catch on very quickly. Very soon you will look forward to spending time teaching dog tricks every day, and your dog will, too!

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