Want to teach your dog tricks? Start here!

Dog tricks! They’re such fun - for you and your dog. 

And one of the main components of many things you’d like your dog to do is to pick things up.

So Pick up, Hold, Bring it to me, are so important - along with Catch, Fetch, and a formal retrieve.

You may have some learning to undo

If your dog has always been admonished for picking things up around the house and garden and on walks, you’re going to have to start from scratch teaching her that now you want her to pick them up!

Give her time to understand that the rules have changed.

You’ll need to teach your dog to hold with a soft mouth. So begin with things she can’t damage before graduating to your tv remote - which definitely would not appreciate being crunched enthusiastically or slobbered on!

Some dogs will squash soft and squishy things. So to encourage them to H-O-L-D gently, with a still mouth, you may find a firm, uncrunchable, tube good to start with. The sort of thing you come to in the centre of a roll of bags.

It needs to have some grip - so not shiny smooth plastic - and not mind getting wet.

As you can see from this picture, EVEN a sighthound can perform a cracking retrieve! (Can’t tell you how many times I was told that as Cricket is a Whippet she’d never be able to fetch. What’s a rabbit, if not a retrieve object?!)

Here’s how to get started!

Here’s an excerpt from Fetch It! Teach your Brilliant Family Dog to catch, fetch, retrieve, find, and bring things back! to get you going, and discovering that it really isn’t that difficult to turn your bored dog into an eager retriever!

Ready, get set, play!

The essence of this method is that it’s fun! It’s a game! So get your dog playing with you first. If she’ll tug, do that. If she’ll run after toys, do that - whether she brings them back or not. And if toys are not de rigueur yet, just run about and play chase and dodge with her. You want to get her heart rate up a bit so she doesn’t fall asleep when you want to work with her.

1. Where you start this is important. Skip the busy kitchen or distracting garden. The best place to start is the study, spare bedroom, or bathroom or any other small room which is free of distraction.

2. Kneel on the floor if you are able. This stops you looming over your dog, which many find very intimidating. Or you can sit so the dog is just in front of you.

3. Animate your chosen toy - at ground level. You want to simulate a rat or rabbit moving fast, then stopping to twitch its whiskers, then darting forward again. A kind of figure of eight movement on the floor around you will work. Watch your dog - he’ll suddenly plug into this movement as his instincts wake up. Then he’ll start to chase it.

4. He may start by pouncing on it, and using his feet to stop it. Keep it moving, jerking it away as he gets close, until he realises he can use his mouth for this. Let him catch it! And mark with a YES.

5. And immediately reward him with a treat to his nostrils, removing the toy as he releases it (you were still holding on to it!)

6. Repeat, repeat, repeat, till you are actually both holding the article for a moment before you ask for a release. This is your first session and will probably take you about three minutes. STOP! Don’t be tempted to carry on till your dog gets bored and loses interest! Remember we’re teaching, not testing. Put the toy away and have another go later.

What happens next? Ooh, you’ll have to nip over to Amazon and get the book! It goes into huge detail on catching, fetching, retrieving, tugging, how to start your assistance dog work, and even how to teach scentwork searches!

With plenty of reviews, it’s proving popular with people who want to have more fun with their dog. And it’s the basis of so many tricks, both fun and very useful.

Now, who’s going to fetch the car keys, pick up the post, and unload the washing machine for you?

Do you like to learn via video lessons? Check out the Brilliant Family Dog Academy where we get you going with some great tricks!

Distancing - for dogs and us

We’re beginning to feel like our reactive dogs!

We feel beleaguered, trapped, attacked.

We’re learning to be afraid of other people …

Well, let’s keep things in proportion. We’re not afraid of other people per se, but of coming into close contact with them.

Personal space

Dogs are ahead of us here, because the dog’s personal space is so much larger than ours. Our natural comfortable distance is a metre or so away from the person we’re talking to, if we don’t know them well. There are global variations on this distance, of course - different cultures have different social norms.

And our own natural feelings have to some extent been over-ridden by what we have to put up with on a normal day. Think rush hour public transport!

There are many upsides in this crisis, and not having to squash into a bus or tube train at rush hour has got to be up there near the top!

So keeping two metres away from people entails making an effort and keeping it in your mind the whole time.

Help from your Growly Dog!

And here’s where your Growly Dog can help you: she is all too keen to keep her distance from other dogs and people - and maybe bikes, toddlers, and cars as well.

So work together on this, and keep your distance too!

Having a small understanding of how she views the world - as a dangerous, threat-filled, place - could make all the difference to how you protect her.

This is why I’ve made a free Masterclass for you: so that you can learn so much to help your dog!

Time off

Many of us are in enforced isolation right now. And this is just heaven for your Growly fella! One of the first things I ask new Growly Dog students to do is to give their dog a “cortisol holiday” - a complete break from all the things that terrify him on a daily basis, to allow the hormone levels to stabilise.

Usually five days of home confinement makes a considerable difference to the anxious, reactive, dog. A noticeable difference.

Now is an ideal opportunity to give your anxious dog that break. And while you find new ways to exercise and amuse him in the home, you can detach yourself from all these worries and anxieties too.

While you’re at home you don’t have to remember to avoid people. You don’t have to view others with fear. You can switch off the things that worry you (yes, I mean the constant news updates, social media, alarmists in general) and enjoy some peace with your now-calmer dog.

Teach him some tricks!

Teach him to fetch!

Have some fun!

I know that many of you with Growly Dogs suffer from feelings of isolation. But right now you’re exactly where you need to be!

I am sure that another upside from this crisis is that people have a space in which to reflect and look at their own life critically.

Instead of being bundled along in the daily grind, holding everything together - working hard not to drop a ball - many people are stepping off their treadmill for the first time in years!

So this is a wonderful opportunity to reassess exactly where you are in life:

• Is it exactly where you want to be?

•  Are there changes you’d love to make?

• What’s stopping you making those changes over the next few months?

Here’s a little exercise for you:

1. Write down the top three values you want to live your life by

   (e.g. adventure, integrity, connection, spirituality, nature, joy . . .)

2. Beside each of your three, write down how far you are now living your life by them. You can use a scale of 1-10 if that helps, with 1 being not at all, and 10 being totally.

3. Now look at what you’ve written!

Is this how you want it to be?

• Yes: fantastic!

• No: what are you going to do to change things?

Comment below or email me and tell me how this went for you!

Want to know how to start the change with your dog?

Join our free masterclass

FETCH IT! teach your dog to retrieve anything

• Does your dog like chasing toys … but expect you to go out and fetch them?

• Or does she remove your fingers when you offer her a toy?

• Perhaps she just thinks toys are to be taken to her bed and buried …

Not any more!

The latest in the popular series of how-to books from Brilliant Family Dog (currently with over 250 5* reviews at Amazon) has arrived!

Fetch It! Teach your Brilliant Family Dog to catch, fetch, retrieve, find, and bring things back!

takes you step-by-step from a reluctant retriever to a fetching fanatic! It’s suitable for people who want to play with their dog in the garden and on walks, folk who compete with their dog, and those who just want their dog to clear up her own toys, fetch your shoes, and find your car keys!

It’s such fun to be able to play fetch and catch games with your dog. And provided you keep an eye on the temperature of the weather, you can get an awful lot of running done without too much effort on your part! There’s guidance in the book on safety so you won’t make any mistakes.

Can you imagine how your dog’s stock will go up with your family and friends, once he becomes a genuinely useful member of the family (apart from being cuddly and adorable, of course, which is his default setting)?

From fetching the post delicately off a hard flat floor without damaging your mail, to bringing her lead, fetching the phone, or finding your jumper, there are lessons here to teach your dog to become a retrieving wizard. And she will LOVE it!

What’s in the book?

• What sort of retrieves are there?

• How can I reward my dog? - super-important!

• Retrieve articles - what will help you, and what to avoid

• Teach your dog to catch - super fun chapter, this!

• Step-by-step to a reliable Play retrieve

• Playing Tug for impulse control

• Step-by-step Formal retrieve, for competition and assistance dogs

• Adding the vocal cue - how to ask politely!

• Fun - this chapter includes, amongst others,

Fetch my shoes, Where’s my jumper, Fetch the post, Where’s your lead, Stack the dinner bowls, Fetch the tv remote, Find my keys, and how to teach Search

“I just have to let you know how thrilled I am. Dodger and I have been playing in the garden and I’ve been throwing his ball. He’s been running after it and then bringing it back. So I’m really chuffed!”

Avril and Dodger, her previously non-retrieving Staffie

5* Amazon review 

My dog is lovely but quite excitable, which made some things really tricky ... The advice in Beverley's books is clear and simple to follow, and best of all it teaches your dog to think for itself and make good choices without any commands. Seriously, if you want a nicer, better-behaved and calmer dog, read these books and follow her steps.

Go and check out this page now where you can choose ebook or paperback. And if you live in an Amazon-free zone (they do exist, I’m told!) you can ask your local bookshop to order it. It’s currently at a super-reasonable introductory price.

Plenty of ideas in this free 8-lesson email course for changing your life with your dog!

   

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Lost your car keys? Get your dog to find them for you!

You’ve sorted the lunch boxes, the kids are ready, the dog’s had a game, the breakfast table is sort of cleared. You’re rushing to get out of the house - and you’ve lost the car keys. Again. 

As my friend Susan - an always-busy farming mother - used to say, “It’d be easier to get out of Fort Knox with a bag of money on my back than to get out of this house on time!”

Instead of panicking and pulling the house apart, book by book, toy by toy, sock by sock, cursing the dog for being under your feet, why not employ said dog to help you?

We’ve all heard the astonishing stories of the power of dogs’ noses, searching for casualties in earthquake zones, detecting cancer on their owner’s skin, unearthing long-dead creatures to roll in …

So in this family of equal opportunities, let’s allow our dog to contribute her own special skills to solve the problem. She could find those keys for you in moments.

How could that possibly happen?

There’s a trick here, of course.

It’s not going to work if you yell at your dog in the midst of your rush and panic. You have to teach her first!

But it may surprise you how quickly she can learn to help you in this way.

Get your free guide to teach your dog a retrieve!

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You can start by getting some kind of soft or fluffy key fob, about tennis ball size would be good, a small soft bear would work - or you could plait some fleece to make a longer soft “handle”, perhaps with a knot on the end. You can even scent it with a tiny drop of vanilla essence to enhance its powers. If your dog is very mouthy and chewy you will do well to buy or make two or three of the same keyfobs, in case one gets over-enthusiastically loved to death

You’ll also need some sensationally good treats - tiny cubes of cheese or hot dog usually hit the spot.

Now you can play a game with your dog with this new toy. Keep the sessions very short - maybe one or at most two minutes - and FUN! 

Here’s your ten-step program to a retrieving wizard

1. Start by producing the key fob and holding it out to her - not in her face, just out in front of you. The second she so much as glances at it, say YES with delight (this is a game, remember!) and give her a small yummy treat. Put the toy behind your back again.

2. Repeat this peek-a-boo game until your dog is very keen to engage with this new toy and get her reward every single time it appears in view. By now you should have bright eyes and a swishing tail.

3. Hold the toy out to her. She’ll look at it and expect her treat. WAIT for just a moment, maybe waggle the toy a little, till she touches it with her nose. YES! Reward! If she bats it with her paw instead, ignore that and hold it much higher up.

4. After a couple of nose touches, WAIT for her to put her teeth on the toy. Maybe she’ll just give it a lick, or just maybe she’ll open her mouth a little. She may worry that she’s not allowed to touch it, so encourage her wildly and make your YES joyful with a particularly scrummy treat. End of first session. Have a game with her with one of her own toys, and put yours safely away.
[You may need to break this down into three brief sessions. Don’t push it - just get fun and a little progress each time.]

Next session, you can start again showing her the toy and rewarding her. Very quickly you can move the game forward to where you left off last time, with your dog touching the toy with some part of her mouth.

5.  Using the same method, keep saying YES! and giving a tasty treat every time she touches the toy with her mouth. You can gradually encourage her to take the toy in her mouth, with you still holding on to it. End of second session.

6. You’re going to advance this game, making it ever so slightly harder and ever so slightly more like a full retrieve every two or three treats. In other words, take it slowly!

7. You can start to let go of the toy, let her hold it a moment, then take it back - “Thank you!”  It doesn't matter if she drops it. Graduate to holding the toy nearer to the floor for her to take; holding it on your knee, dropping it by your shoe.

Fast forward: within a few sessions you’ll have a dog who gets excited at the sight of your fluffy, scented, key-fob, and who will pick it up when you drop it on the floor and smartly give it back to you to swap for her treat. Work very quickly and she won’t even think of chomping on it.

8. Start tossing the toy further away always rewarding her instantly for giving it back to you. Now you can add your words: “Where are my keys?” every time you toss it. Always put the toy away again after each session.

9. Finally, play hunt-the-toy games. Let her watch you push it slightly under the corner of a rug, then send her for it - “Where are my keys?” Hide it under a cushion on the sofa and send her for it. Find new places to hide it, always making sure she has success and brings it straight back to you to swap for her treat. Keep this really simple - we only want success! We’re not testing our dog, guys.

10. Attach your keys to the fluffy fob. Now you can show her the toy and avert her eyes or leave her in a different room while you go and hide the toy in one of the places she’s found it before. Keep it easy! She’ll search all the old places till she finds it. 

Keep playing this game fairly regularly - don’t wait till you’re in full panic! You know the old saying, “Use it or lose it!” When you need her to find your keys you want this exciting game to be fresh in her mind. I frequently drop things on the floor (on purpose) and ask the nearest dog to “pick that up for me”. They love the opportunity to earn yet another reward!

Not only will your dog quickly learn this game of finding your keys without crunching them in her teeth - not good for electronic car keys! -  but you’ll be amazed how enjoyable it is teaching her. You’ll be watching the wheels go round in her head while she works out the new problem every time you move the goalposts. You’ll develop a new respect for your dog’s abilities. 

And she’ll love being a useful member of the family.

Now … what other things could your dog help you with?

Get your free guide to teach your dog a retrieve!

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Want to turn your dog into a star retriever? Check Fetch it! Teach your Brilliant family Dog to catch fetch, retrieve, find and bring things back! and enjoy a new relationship with your dog.

Teach your dog to fetch, retrieve, find, and bring things back

When you first got your new dog you may have expected him to come with a retrieve installed. After all, don’t all dogs love chasing balls and sticks?

Well no - actually not all of them do!

You may have struck lucky and got a natural retriever, or you may have a dog that stares in puzzlement at anything you drop or throw. But all is not lost! You can teach your dog to love retrieving. 

In fact you may be better off having to teach from the start. When I was working in Obedience competition with my dogs many years ago, I had two Border Collies.

Rupert was a natural retriever. He loved pouncing on toys, making them scoot away so he could chase them again, grabbing them, tossing them in the air, and racing around shaking them. Can you imagine how hard it was to get a formal retrieve from him? Dear Rupert could lose a lot of marks on retrieve.

Dodger, on the other hand, came to me a little later in life and had no idea what to do with objects. So I broke the retrieve down into many separate steps - the first being to hold the item in his mouth - and taught him step-by-step. When it came to competition I always knew I’d have full marks in the bag for Dodger’s retrieve: it was always accurate and faultless.

So even if you have a happy-go-lucky toy-fetcher you could still look at tidying up some aspects of his retrieve. It’s so handy to have a dog who can fetch your shoes, keys, or the tv remote without fearing that they will arrive in your lap in many pieces.

Check out my new online Brilliant Family Dog Academy teaching new dog owners to achieve lasting results through six weeks of dog-friendly coaching - retrieve included!

'Tis a common question

I’ve had some emails lately on just this subject. First was Kevin and his ESS Charlie:

"I have found your four books extremely useful and continually use them as reference material. I have an English Springer Spaniel, almost one year old, and have been using your methods with considerable success. I would like some advice on how to teach him to fetch as he does not seem at all interested in returning thrown items nor holding on to them for even a short period of time. It doesn't seem instinctive to him. Thank you."

What a delightful challenge for me: a spaniel who doesn’t retrieve! Here’s what I suggested Kevin try:

"For getting your pup interested in toys, I suggest using foodtoys - kongs with a bit of liver sausage smeared inside, or a lotus ball, or even better an old knotted sock with some bits of cheese or sausage in. Get Charlie to chase it and grab it. Then you can open it for him. After a while you can show him you're putting food in, then chuck it away, so he has to give it to you to open. You can gradually build up a desire to hold the toy. The first thing is to plug in to the instinctive chase drive. 
Let me know how it goes!"

[A lotus ball is a soft ball-shaped toy that opens up to reveal its foodie contents]

This was Kevin’s first response:

"Tried the sock/return idea. Only shows interest in chewing at the sock to get at the contents. I've ordered a lotus ball so that may work. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong here."

Kevin wasn’t quick enough to reach Charlie when he got the sock - no need for him to bring it back at this stage, just show an interest. Remember, we're breaking it down into tiny steps. So here’s what I suggested next: 

"When Charlie’s about to grab the sock, twitch it away on the ground a few inches. As long as he tries to get it, do this two or three times - then when he grabs it, open the sock and give him a bit of the food. Then twitch it again. You want to stimulate his chase instinct. You know how rabbits run, freeze, twitch whiskers, then dart again? This is the action you want to simulate to get his chase going. He may start by just stamping on it - he'll graduate to catching it in his mouth. If you put the sock on a string that will help to get him interested without crowding him - some dogs don’t like you leaning over them while they are focussed on a toy and will shy away.

See this video of fun with a flirt pole. Once you've got the chase going you're halfway there!

Introducing puppy Cricket to the flirt pole

Report back!"

And I was so pleased to hear from Kevin a little later. It can be very disappointing when you take time to help someone and never hear from them again … not so with Kevin.

"With a combination of your advice including a lotus ball we have success. Charlie is eager to return to hand any thrown items on demand. Thanks again."

Baby Steps

10-week-old Loki learns to tug with all his might!

So you can see the key to this is to break the problem down into tiny steps and work on just one of them to begin with. In Charlie’s case it was getting him to find his chase instinct. Once he was keen to chase the object to get a tasty reward, he was able to start enjoying the actual chase and the toy itself. 

In some cases a puppy’s chase instinct may have been quashed through punishment early on. (I’m not saying that’s what happened with Charlie! He was like my Dodger - just didn’t get this whole toy thing.)

But if you shout at a puppy for picking up something you don’t want him to have, one of two things may happen. He may be so terrorised by your outburst that he never picks anything up again for fear of being shouted at. Or he may say “Game on!” and try and get you to chase him. Of course if you do, he has succeeded in teaching you a new game that he will always win!

So with a new puppy, tidy up and ensure the only things he can get hold of are his own toys. And I like there to be a wide range of toys so your puppy can choose what appeals to him and fits his mouth.

Two Toys

Interestingly I had another query about retrieve only the other day:

"Could you give a few tips on how to get your dog interested in running after his toys and bringing them back please? My Dodger loves his ropes and used to run after them when I threw them in our garden, but now he’s more interested in lying on the grass and just chewing them. I never could interest him in bringing them back to me, but when I picked up another of his ropes he dropped the rope he had and ran to take the rope I had."

Another Dodger! And this time the writer had inadvertently hit on an answer to this problem. Using two similar toys and getting your dog to switch his attention from one to the other will transform into a retrieve over time. The key is to make the toy you’re playing with alive and exciting, then when you want to swap to the other toy you let the first toy go limp and dead while the other toy springs to life in your other hand. 

Remember you’re harnessing the instinctive drive that every dog - whatever the breed or history - has: to locate prey, stalk it, chase it, catch it and kill it.

Your dog will soon let go of the first toy and transfer to the second. Once he enjoys the engagement with you of pulling on the “live” toy, he’ll know that toys are more fun when you’re involved. Then it’s a short step to you letting go of the toy mid-game and watching him bring it back to you - nudging your hand to get you to play again. 

Here’s a great game which shows you how to get a fast and engaged retrieve. You need to follow the directions closely. 

Tugging: Two Toy Game

What sort of toy should I use?

Rollo waits for his frisbee to drop into his mouth

It’s a mistake to inflict your idea of a retrieve toy onto your dog. Let him choose!

Offer him a few different toys to see which engages him more. For tugging games I favour a soft fleecy plait, long enough to keep hands safely away from teeth, and narrow and soft enough for your dog to grip it comfortably.

Balls work for many dogs, but can be hard to get out of their mouth when they bring it back - all wet and slimy! So I like to use balls on ropes, then there’s something you can hold on to while you wait patiently for your dog to let go. Don't spoil his fun by insisting on him releasing it instantly.

Once you’ve taught your dog to bring back things you throw, you’re ready to teach him how to catch a frisbee! All mine love their frisbees, and as each has his or her own toy, there’s never any arguing over the toys. They’ll simply ignore any toy unless it’s their own.

Want to turn your dog into a star retriever? Check Fetch it! Teach your Brilliant family Dog to catch fetch, retrieve, find and bring things back! and enjoy a new relationship with your dog.