We all love dogs that know a ton of tricks. Tricks can be fun to teach, cute to show off, and they have both mental and physical benefits for the dog. But there are a couple common tricks you may want to avoid teaching, or at least hold off for awhile.
Anytime we reward our dogs for a behavior, we can expect that they will do that behavior more frequently, even when we aren’t asking them to do it. We love it when dogs do this with certain behaviors like sit or down. If I’m holding my dog’s ball up, I like that she will lay down to ask me to throw it rather than trying to snatch it out of my hand. But it’s less fun for the person when their dog ends up relentlessly barking or scratching at them to get what they want. This is a potential outcome from teaching them to “give paw” and “speak.”
Let’s say you taught your dog to give paw recently, but now you’re trying to work on a new trick, and your dog is
a bit confused. Your dog starts offering their paw, thinking that may be the right answer. It’s pretty cute, so you give them a treat or praise them anyways. Now the next time your dog is a bit confused or frustrated, they’re more likely to go back to using their paw. Depending on their size and personality, this can turn into painful scratching!
Another time this pops up is if you’re sitting at the couch watching TV. Your dog wants your attention, but you aren’t really paying attention. They decide to try using their paw, since sometimes that does work. Since your hand isn’t available, they scratch at your leg, and you start to pet them without a second thought. Success! (as far as your dog is concerned).
You may not mind your dog scratching at you for attention, especially if they’re the gentle type. If you don’t personally mind it, then don’t worry about it! It’s not a problem unless you think it is. Regardless, it’s smart to think about this ahead of time and make a conscious decision about what you do and don’t want your dog doing more of.
All of this applies to “speak” as well. One of the most common methods of teaching “speak” involves getting your dog frustrated by teasing them with a toy or treat, then rewarding them when they eventually bark or whine. So here we’re explicitly telling our dog, “when you’re frustrated, the right answer is to bark at me!” The vast majority of people aren’t going to want that for very long.
I fell into this trap myself. For six years, anytime my dog wanted something, she’d just sit and stare at me. A few months ago, I started teaching her “speak,” and she realized that barking is a way to get stuff from me. This was something she never even considered before! Now, if she’s staring at me and I don’t respond quickly enough, she’s much more likely to start barking. Whoops!
Now if you really want to teach either of these tricks, there are some ways around this problem, but you need to be mindful of it from the start, and they’re not foolproof.
First, definitely don’t teach these to your dog right away. The first couple things we teach our dogs tend to be what they default to the most. This is especially true if you have a puppy. Teach your dog lots of other obedience cues and tricks before considering “speak” or “paw.”
Then, as soon as your dog does learn the trick, only reward them for it when you’ve explicitly asked them to do it. If you haven’t asked them to do the trick, and they offer it on their own, ignore it. Don’t even tell them to “shush” or accept their offered paw and place it back on the ground. Completely ignore it! This is hard for most people to be consistent with, especially if they have a persistent pup, but it is an important piece of the puzzle.
So at the end of the day, you can teach your dog any trick you want. Just be mindful of the ways the trick may backfire, the ways to mitigate problems, and what you are personally okay with your dog doing unprompted. And if all that seems like too much to worry about, skip those tricks altogether. There are plenty of others for your dog to learn!
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