Today’s Coronavirus Canine Challenge video was a bit mad for two reasons – firstly I made the mistake of asking Himself to help me, and he’s even worse with technology than me, and secondly, Gus heard a bumble bee fly past (one of the many things he’s scared of that I continue to work on) so rushed back inside! Himself then burst into mad laughter, waving the phone around and making it all look very silly – his excuse was “I didn’t realise it was live”. I need to get Daughter no 2 to help in future…
Anyway, hopefully there was enough for you to get the idea of today’s challenge!
Today the challenge is to teach your dog to touch – whatever you want. If you’ve not played a game like this before the simple first step is to teach your dog to touch your hand:
- Rub your palm with a treat
- Hold your hand out to your side, at dog’s nose level, with palm facing the dog
- When your dog comes forward and touches your palm, say “yes” or “good” then give him/her a treat
- Repeat until your dog is pushing his nose into your palm with enthusiasm
If you’ve already taught a hand touch, then raise the bar a bit. Here’s some ideas:
- Teach your dog to touch a very specific place on your hand, such as your knuckles, or a specific finger – this can be really helpful if you want to teach your dog obedience style walking at heel, as I show in today’s video
- Mix with a chase game by asking your dog to touch your palm then run away a few paces and offer the other hand for a touch. Repeat and have fun!
Use your imagination:
- Touch another specific part of your body – there’s almost no limit to this one!
- Touch and hold their nose on your hand to teach duration
- Repeatedly push time and time again against your palm – helpful when wanting to teach push type tricks (more in a week or so on this one)
Keep training and keep safe,
Carol