10 Easy Tricks to Teach Your Dog

If you’ve mastered the basics of dog training – Sit, Down, Come, Stay, Leave it, Walking on Leash – you can move onto some of the 10 easy tricks to teach your dog. This is where we really start getting into the fun part of dog training. While not necessarily needed for your dog to be a well behaved and obedient companion, you can teach tricks to challenge your dog mentally to help them keep growing.

Tricks should be fun and spark joy for both you and your furry companion, it’s a great way to bond. I will say that not every dog is comfortable with all tricks – if your dog has some comfortability issues they can still learn tricks, but I would encourage you to try them all out and see which they were most comfortable trying.

Shake

The first easy trick to teach your dog is “Shake”. This is a simple trick to have your dog learn to shake paws with you and your friends. Most dogs can learn this in a few short training sessions, as dogs naturally like to use their paws and they enjoy how excited we get when they offer their paw.

Play Dead

The second easy trick to teach your dog is “Play Dead”. This is one of those fun tricks to show off once you get it down, it may take some work to get them to stay still in the position but it’s simple enough they can learn to do this in no time. It also works as a great building block for other skills, such as Roll Over.

Roll Over

The third easy trick to teach your dog is “Roll Over”. This skill may take some work to get them to fully roll on their back to their other side, but once a dog learns many have a blast and will be rolling over all the time. Not all dogs are comfortable doing this trick, so if this is the case with your dog, please don’t force him to do it. There are plenty of other cool tricks to teach.

Spin

The next easy trick to teach your dog is “Spin”. By holding a treat near their rear, you can easily teach your dog to spin in circles. You can make it harder by teaching them to do it in specific directions.

Kuranda Dog Beds

10 Easy Tricks to Teach Your Dog

Sit Pretty

The next trick is “Sit Pretty”. In this skill we are asking the dog to lift themselves up into a begging position, sitting on their back feet/bum but keeping their back straight up. The picture at the top of this article demonstrates what “Sit Pretty” should look like.

Kiss

“Kiss” is another easy trick to teach your dog. For those who don’t mind a bit of dog slobber on their cheek (or mouth – it’s up to you!) This skill is a fun sweet trick to teach your dog. It’s one of the easiest tricks to teach and appeals to many kiddos. It has an added benefit for those who teach it on cue it can help curb unwanted kissing.

Crawl

I personally love to teach “Crawl” as one of the easy tricks to teach your dog. Sometimes referred to as the “army crawl”, this trick teaches your dog to move while on their belly. This trick is fun and helpful for people who take their dogs to pet patios because it can help if they lay in the wrong place to move them over a smidge or even a building block to teach them to crawl and lay under a chair.

Back Up

Teaching your dog to take steps backwards is adorable, however there are some fun practical uses for this as well. If your dog gets out of the heel position it’s a simple way to ask them to reset, back up from being too close to the front door or fridge door, etc.

Bow

Many dogs will offer a play bow when they are excited and trying to get you or another dog to play with them, we simply are teaching to do this on cue – why? Because it’s so adorable.

Balance a treat

The final easy trick to teach your dog is balancing a treat on your dog’s nose or head. This is the most advanced trick in the list that requires patience and some work. However, it teaches impulse control and really requires your dog to learn to wait. It’s a fun way to teach them these lessons.

We Hope you enjoyed this article about 10 Easy Tricks to Teach Your Dog. A related article you may enjoy is Fun Games to Play With Your Dog. Tricks and games are a great way to keep your dog engaged, active, and to build your bond with him/her.

If you are interested in learning how to teach any of these tricks, or just need some help with your dog, please reach out to one of our professional trainers at Good Buddy Dog Training for some lessons! If your dog doesn’t have the basics of dog training down yet we can start there to insure that they know these basics then move on to the fun side of training.

Dog Training in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Corrales, Placitas

The mission of Good Buddy Dog Training is to help build the bond between dogs and their owners through positive training methods. We teach dogs to accomplish new behaviors and humans to bring out the best in their furry friends. For the most effective training, we work with people directly in their homes, where dogs and their humans feel most comfortable. And the training we do is based on the science of how dogs learn by using a positive and fun curriculum to build confidence in both dog and owner.