Day Seven -- Games People Play

Games and play are an important part of training and increasing the bond between you and your dog. It helps keep her engaged and teaches her to look to you for all the good things in her life. There are a lot of traditional games to play with dogs like fetch or tug but there are also some other types of games that can be really fun for you and her. There are a lot of puzzles out now for dogs. Seems strange to have a puzzle for a dog but it's a fun way to teach them to solve problems and it can burn off some energy on a rainy day. Thankfully we have had no rainy days thus far but it seemed like a good activity to do in the sunshine as well.

Treats are hidden in the puzzle and the level of difficulty can be altered by adding or subtracting pieces. Then just encourage her to "find it" as she works the puzzle with her nose or paws to get to the kibble.

Training can be a fun game too...it doesn't have to be all work. We've progressed through various stages of "leave it" from holding items in my hand to putting them on the ground. I start out by putting kibble in one hand and telling her to "leave it." I only say it once and then I wait. If I need to, I close my hand to prevent her from getting the kibble.

She will try a variety of things to get the kibble and, when she finally backs off of it, I mark it and give her a higher value treat.

We then move on to putting it on the ground but covering it with my hand.

Eventually we graduate to just having my hand close by to cover it if necessary.

And now we are working with the kibble completely uncovered. With a little more practice she will be really good at this. It's so nice when you can say in a nice soft voice to your dog, "Leave it" and have your dog happily leave something.

And let's not forget our more traditional play. Tug is a great game to teach self-control, practice "drop," and strengthen her on/off switch. The rules are as follows; the human starts and ends the game, only adults play the game, and she has to drop when asked. I started out teaching her by putting a treat to her nose to get her to drop but now...

I say "drop" and she drops right away. I'm still rewarding her for it because I want it to be really strong but soon just playing the game will be reward enough.