3 Ways Training Tricks Keeps Your Dog Healthier
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.
Disaster Plans Often Overlook These Important Points
We can’t control disasters but we can control how we respond to them. Our animals, pets, working and Service dogs are all part of our families and having a plan will make responding easier and less stressful. Most plans often overlook these important points. Therefore, preparing a disaster kit, having safe place to stay, having insurance all are important parts of ensuring your well-being in times of catastrophes. Make sure your pet, working dog or Service Dog are safe whatever the circumstances are. Create an emergency plan. For more detailed information on how to create a disaster plan, please click here. Infographic courtesy of mikesgearreviews.co
Clicker Training: Teach a Dog to Jump Over Your Leg
With a clicker, some treats and a little patience, you can teach a dog to do almost anything quickly, easily and with minimal stress. Check out the attached video to learn how to teach a dog to jump through a hoop and jump over your leg in two directions.
Service Dog Quest: Perfect Positions
We all think our Service Dogs know basic commands inside and out, but do they really? This week's Service Dog Challenge will shake up your behavior proofing knowledge, polish your Service Dog's performance and solidify your partner's comprehension of cues. Get ready to have some fun perfecting your canine partner's positional knowledge and learning how to test understanding!