People love showing off their dog’s tricks. Flashy skills like rolling over, playing dead, or sitting pretty provide lots of opportunities for fun. While many dog owners assume training tricks serves little purpose for their dog beyond entertainment, they’re quite wrong! Training tricks offers many health benefits for dogs both young and old.
Trick Training Provides Mental Stimulation
Make no bones about it — mental stimulation, science says, is just as good, if not better, than physical exercise! Working your dog’s brain offers great opportunities to stave off boredom and reduce excess energy. Learning tricks requires your dog to focus on the new skill or behavior, master it, and link it with a cue. Performing tricks on cue means your dog has to sort through known behaviors and cues, select the correct one, and then do it! That’s hard work that occupies a lot of brain power and mental juice.
If you don’t have enough energy to train tricks, try some of these other tools for increasing mental stimulation for your dog.
Training Tricks Builds Strength
Many tricks require your dog to use their body in ways that aren’t common in day to day life. Sitting pretty, commando crawling, standing on hind legs, perching, pivots, and many other common dog tricks work your dog’s core strength and body awareness. Training tricks builds strength, enhances mobility and flexibility, and allows your dog to get a nice workout while having fun. Remember to start slowly and built up duration and intensity. Performance in the beginning may not be awesome, but don’t give up — keep practicing and your dog’s physical capabilities will improve.
Tricks Help Bond Dog and Owner
One of the best ways for dogs and owners to bond involves spending qualiy time together. Playing, grooming, and, you guessed it, training, all offer ample opportunities for bonding. Learning tricks helps handlers hone training and communication skills. It assists dogs in furthering knowledge and capabilities, while also letting them practice focus, learning to learn, and all kinds of other important engagement skills.