Your dog should know the basic commands such as sit, heel, down, before the trick training begins, as it will make things so much easier later on.Once these have been mastered you can start to build on them and your dog will soon be entertaining your friends with the following three simple tricks.

Imploring.

It’s best to have your dog sit in a corner of the room with his/her back to the wall and you standing in front of him/her when you begin teaching it this trick.The walls will back up your dog and give him/her the confidence that he/she won’t fall over if he/she raises his/her front legs off the floor.

Take some small pieces of food and hold them above your dog’s head whilst luring it to reach up for it.Each time he takes the food, praise him and repeat this procedure slowly encouraging him to reach higher each time.

Whilst encouraging the dog to reach up for the food, you have to make sure that he is keeping his haunches on the ground. This can be achieved by moving the food forwards over its head slightly making the dog shift its weight back over its hindlegs,which will teach him/her to keep its balance.

When these have been mastered, you can begin to teach it some tricks and your dog will soon be entertaining your friends with the following three simple tricks. You must expect at this stage that the dog seems to be going backwards in its learning, but this is to be expected until the dog is able to perfect it using only its own body weight.

Shaking hands.

There are two parts of this trick to teach your dog. A verbal part and a non-verbal part which both work together to give the dog a cue that you want him to do the trick.

In the first place, the dog should start off from a sitting position. Make a single word verbal command such as ‘shake’, and at the same time reach out with your right hand until it is just a few inches from your dog’s right leg.Your outstretched hand is the non-verbal prompt.

Initially, your dog may just sit motionless unsure of what to do, so with your left hand, gently push or prod his right leg forwards until it rests in your right hand. When he/she has done this, praise him/her so that he/she knows it has done as you wanted.

Practise this trick many times; praising after each successful result and gradually reducing the amount of left hand prompting until only the verbal and non-verbal cues become everything that’s necessary.

The main thing with training a mature dog to perform tricks is that the dog will learn in its own time.

Never scold your dog if he does not seem to be learning, it is always better to be patient and encourage it more.

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