Dog tricks for puppies?

[jboboxer]

Roxy is only 5 months old, but she seems to love to perform tricks more than probably the treat I'm giving her.
Right now she can do these tricks

Come
Sit
Shake (paw)
Lay down
Stay (won't move until I say come)
Spin (left and right)

The problem is that I'm not sure what other tricks to teach her? She knows a lot of words like walk, outside...etc, but as far as tricks itself the only one I can think of next is to get her to move back as suggested by a friend of mine. Some people suggest teaching her to roll over, but most of my house is tile and wood floors and I just think it won't be a good thing as she gets older. Speak seems to be another popular trick, but it's hard to catch her barking and trying to encourage that, plus most people seem to have a problem with dogs that bark too much. My parents taught their dog to speak on command and I'm not sure if encouraging a dog to bark and giving them a treat has anything to do with it, but their dog (american eskimo) barks so much that they decided to disconnect their door bell, which I think is insane. So I'm not completely sure I want to teach Roxy to bark, because I think not barking much is better than being annoyed and barking too much.

Any suggestions for any other tricks that aren't too hard to teach or for Roxy to do at 5 months of age?

[jbbtlr]

A few I can think of:

crawl
play dead
take a bow
kisses
wave


Good luck!

[Indieboy]

Round - she runs around you
Under the Bridge - walks through your legs while walking forward.

Also, one game Indie loves is hunting in the house.
1. I take a stuffed animal or favorite toy,
2. teach the dog some silent commands,
tapping on his chest is stay
tapping my pant leg is come
3. Go silently through the house room by room looking for the toy, I always whisper to him
"where is it"?
4. When you dog sees it, make them wait until the release command
for attack. Then praise and treats.

[TwoDogs]

You could teach a retrieve and you can teach targeting. Both of these behaviors are the foundation for a whole bunch of tricks. You are only limited by what you can think up.

I've taught my dogs to "touch" their nose to a target. I've also taught them to "target" objects with their paw. Once you get these down, you can teach all sorts of things--ring a bell, flip a light switch, step on the garbage can pedal to open the top, push a door closed, etc.

If you teach a retrieve, you can have the dog retrieve items to your hand or place them in a box or basket.

Imagine combining the two to teach the dog to pick up an object, carry it to a waste basket, step on the pedal and drop the item in the open top. Why in no time at all, I bet you could have Roxy cleaning up the house for you!

[jboboxer]

Originally Posted by jbbtlr

A few I can think of:

crawl
play dead
take a bow
kisses
wave


Good luck!

I was looking online and saw the wave, which you use shake and just don't put your paw up, but does your dog get confused between shaking and waving or will it do the samething?

How did you teach crawl, because I think I might try that next. Did you teach crawl by putting up an obstacle and having your dog go under the obstacle?

How did you teach dead as well?

I've seen people teach bow when the dog stretches, which I say stretch every time, but I don't know she knows the word stretch with what she is doing.

[jboboxer]

Originally Posted by Indieboy

Round - she runs around you
Under the Bridge - walks through your legs while walking forward.

Also, one game Indie loves is hunting in the house.
1. I take a stuffed animal or favorite toy,
2. teach the dog some silent commands,
tapping on his chest is stay
tapping my pant leg is come
3. Go silently through the house room by room looking for the toy, I always whisper to him
"where is it"?
4. When you dog sees it, make them wait until the release command
for attack. Then praise and treats.

I will have to try that. I've been making Roxy sit and I say stay and then I go in my house and hide in different locations and tell her come. Basically playing hide and seek with her, but instead of a toy I guess I'm her toy. I keep calling her until she can find where i'm hiding.

[jboboxer]

Originally Posted by TwoDogs

You could teach a retrieve and you can teach targeting. Both of these behaviors are the foundation for a whole bunch of tricks. You are only limited by what you can think up.

I've taught my dogs to "touch" their nose to a target. I've also taught them to "target" objects with their paw. Once you get these down, you can teach all sorts of things--ring a bell, flip a light switch, step on the garbage can pedal to open the top, push a door closed, etc.

If you teach a retrieve, you can have the dog retrieve items to your hand or place them in a box or basket.

Imagine combining the two to teach the dog to pick up an object, carry it to a waste basket, step on the pedal and drop the item in the open top. Why in no time at all, I bet you could have Roxy cleaning up the house for you!

Wow that seems pretty difficult to be honest. Roxy has a hard time playing fetch as she will bring me back the ball, but she tries to tease me or what I consider tease and gets really close to me, but she tries to be far away so I can't grab the ball from her. She knows commands like drop, but I play fetch with her often with the tennis balls and she enjoys it, but having her actually bring back the tennis ball and dropping it at my feet has been a challenge, so I'm just assuming if I'm having this issue playing fetch that to get her to retrieve anything and drop it might be much harder since she doesn't do it with the tennis balls when we play fetch.

[Cami]

Think outside the box.
Teach right and left. Your neighbors will be amazed when you come to a corner while out walking and you give a direction and they listen! It's also entertaining when guests are over and you tell them that something (toy/treat/etc...) is on their right and they turn in that direction to get it!
Use shake to teach "high-five". Utilize a different paw for each.
Give specific names to certain toys and have her learn which name goes with what.

To be honest, at 5 months of age I know it is fun and interesting to teach a myriad of different commands/tricks but none of them matter as much as the "come" command. A good solid recall is one of the single most important potentially life saving commands you can teach. It needs to be taught in the house, out in the yard and in all other areas with and without distractions. Get that down as close to 100% as you can before putting too much effort into teaching other things....meaning of course to teach different "tricks" but keep throwing that one in there as often as possible!

Start observing what it is that she does often on her own and put a word to it.
"Daddy's home", "give mommy/daddy kisses", "wiggle", "get a drink", "wait" (like stay but while laying down), "drop-it", "leave-it", "off", "relax", "crate", "carry" (holding something in her mouth), etc...

[gordnbec]

Originally Posted by TwoDogs

You could teach a retrieve and you can teach targeting. Both of these behaviors are the foundation for a whole bunch of tricks. You are only limited by what you can think up.

I've taught my dogs to "touch" their nose to a target. I've also taught them to "target" objects with their paw. Once you get these down, you can teach all sorts of things--ring a bell, flip a light switch, step on the garbage can pedal to open the top, push a door closed, etc.

If you teach a retrieve, you can have the dog retrieve items to your hand or place them in a box or basket.

Imagine combining the two to teach the dog to pick up an object, carry it to a waste basket, step on the pedal and drop the item in the open top. Why in no time at all, I bet you could have Roxy cleaning up the house for you!

Stepping on a garbage can pedal wold be high on my list to avoid. More likely to end up with rubish strewn around the house as the scavenge for food when they get board. Other than that target is good and a very important foundation in obedience work.

[baekjae]

Hey, to teach crawl. Your pup will have to know "down" as a pre-requisite.
Anyways, once you tell your dog to "down", you can use a treat to lure him forward from the down position. Start off slow, so lure it maybe a few inches away from his nose, and as he gets the hang of it, move the treats farther away.
If he gets UP to go foward, dont give him the treat. Instead, reset. In other words, tell him "down" again, and try again until he's crawling to go forward.
After he can crawl with the treats at a good distance away from him, you can start adding the queue word "crawl" and start associating the word to the action.