13 Simple and Easy Tricks to Teach Your Dog

Teaching your dog some fun tricks is always entertaining, especially if you’re a beginner and you just brought your new pup home. We all know that dogs can be trained to complete simple commands like “sit” and “stay”. 

This also helps your dog to use all their parts of the body and most importantly, it stimulates their mind to think and understand your signals effectively.

Here is a list of over 13 dog trick ideas, that you can teach your dog! So grab some tasty treats, set aside 15 minutes, and start working through the list!

List of 13 Easy Dog Tricks for Beginners

1. Paw

Your dog learns to place his paw in your outstretched hand; like a handshake, but better.

Steps

1.     At your dog’s level, hold a treat in a closed hand facing upwards.

2.     Your dog will investigate, sniff, and eventually ‘paw’ at the hand. At this point of the trick say ‘good.’ Give them a food reward.

3.     Repeat several times, and then present your hand without a food treat in. Reward at the point they place a paw on it.

4.     Now say Paw, and simply hold your hand out flat. When your dog paws at it, say ‘good.” Reward again.

5.     You can now incorporate holding their paw gently and shaking it.

2. Hand Touch

This trick teaches your dog to move towards your palm and bop it with their nose!

Steps

1. Start off with both hands behind your back with your dog in front of you.
2. Move your hand with an open palm (as if you were about to give someone a handshake) in front of you dog. Your dog will most likely move towards it and sniff it, at which point say ‘good.’ and reward them.
3. Put your hand back behind your back and repeat that several times so they’re confident in leaning towards and making contact with your hand with their nose.
4. Now you can say ‘touch’ before presenting your hand and reward in exactly the same way.
5. Next is to increase how far away they have to travel to come bop your hand.
6. Gradually increase the distance you stand from them, so that eventually they can be across the room and will run to you and touch your hand.

3. Spin

Your dog learns to walk in a tight circle on the cue ‘spin’

Steps

1. Have your dog positioned in a ‘heel’ position next to your leg and facing in the same direction as you.
2. Have a treat in a closed hand or between finger and thumb and place in front of their nose and then move your hand in a circle moving out and away from you (as if you were swimming breaststroke).
3. As you complete the circle, reward them. Some dogs may need some extra encouragement with this trick, so reward at ½ a circle, and a full circle to start with and gradually then move to just rewarding at the full circle.
4. Once this is fluid, you can now say ‘spin’ (or ‘twist’ ‘turn’.) and then move your hand in the same way and reward as before.
5. Repeat multiple times and once they are becoming more confident with the movement
6. You can reduce how must gesturing you’re doing each time until you simply say ‘spin’ and your dog moves.

4. Middle Trick

Teach your dog to come and stand between your legs and look up at you.

Steps

1. Have your dog in front of you to start with. Have a treat in your hand and place it in front of their nose.
2. Move your hand slowly and gradually round behind you so your hand ends up between your legs from behind.
3. Have your other hand ready to then pass the treat to going through your legs, to encourage your pup to move between your legs.
4. Once their head and shoulders are poking out from between your legs, stop moving your hand, wait momentarily and then reward them.
5. Repeat until it’s nice and fluid.
6. Then say ‘middle’ and then move your hands as before.
7. Over time reduce how much gesturing with each hand your doing so that you can eventually simply say ‘middle’ and they move into the correct position looking up at you ready for their reward.

5. Figure Of 8

Teach your dog to make a figure of 8 pattern using your legs.

Steps

1. Have both hands closed with treats inside both of them.
2. For this trick, put one treat-hand near your dog’s nose to encourage them to move. Guide your hand backwards and behind yourself so you end up with your hand behind you, between your legs.
3. Let your dog follow
4. Meet this hand with your other hand immediately and move your dog with this hand now out to the other side of you and back round so you end up with that hand behind you and between your legs, and then reward your dog.
5. Once this is easy (for both you and your dog), you can say ‘figure’ (or weave) before you move your hands at all to add your verbal instruction.
6. Now work at gradually fading out how much gesturing each part requires.

6. Paws Up Trick

Teach your dog to put their front paws on a slightly higher object (step, stool, rock, tree stump)- this makes for great pictures.

Steps

1. With your chosen object next to you, have a treat in your hand and move your hand slowly and gradually so your dog follows the treat and takes steps towards it.
2. At the point their feet meet the edge of the object, raise your hand slightly to encourage them to take a step up.
3. As soon as their feet are up on the object, say ‘good’ and reward them.
4. Repeat several times until fluid and say, ‘paws up’ and then gesture in exactly the same way.
5. Once they are confident with the movement and have started to learn the cue, you can start to increase how long they are up on the object for before you say ‘good’ and reward them.

7. Bow

Teach your dog to bow, lowering their front half of their body down whilst keeping their bottom in the air.

Steps

1. Have a treat in a closed hand and place it in front of your dog’s nose.
2. Gradually lower your hand slightly and move it gently towards their chest so that their head goes down a bit and their front legs start to move downwards.
3. Reward this trick before they go into a down.
4. Repeat several times and then gradually increase how far their front legs are going down until they are in the ‘play’ position.
5. Reward this trick each time they hit this position.
6. Finish off by saying the word ‘bow’ (again some dogs may mishear for ‘down’ so another cue you could use is ‘bend’.) and then gesturing in the same way.
7. Some dogs will find this hard if they have a very good ‘down’ already and may need you to place your arm gently underneath their hips to prevent their back end from going into the down instead of bow.

8. Shake Head

Teach this trick so your dog will nod or shake their head.

Steps

1. Start this trick with your dog in the sit position.
2. Have a tasty treat between finger and thumb.
3. Move the treat either side of you (or up and down) so that your dog follows the movement of the treat with their eyes but to the extent that they also have to move their head in the direction you want.
4. Once they’ve gone side to side or up and down, say ‘good’ and reward them.
5. Repeat several times so they get the idea that they are being reward for head movements.
6. Now add your verbal cue ‘what do you say?’
7. Continue to move your hand exactly as you had been doing so, and then reward.
8. Repeat several times and slowly reduce down how much gesturing you’re doing.

9. Snoot

Teach your dog to place their nose/muzzle in a circle made of your hands.

Steps

1. Firstly, make a circle with your finger and thumb so there’s a little gap (this is where we want your dog’s nose to go).
2. Take a treat and place it on your side of the hole so your dog places their nose into the hole. Release the treat once they’ve placed their nose in the hole.
3. Now build up the time they hold their nose in that position for before you reward them.
4. Once they’re confident, now you can add the ‘snoot’ word before presenting your circle to them.
5. If they immediately put their nose there, say ‘good’ and reward them in that position.
6. If they are hesitant because there is no treat waiting for them, wait for a few seconds to see if they can work it out, and then reward them.
7. Build up the time they hover their nose in that position for before saying ‘good’ and rewarding.

10. Jump Over A Jump

Teach your dog this trick to jump over an obstacle (this is suitable for dogs over 1 year of age).

Steps

1. Have your dog’s favorite toy ready in your hand and have them sat on the other side of the jump in a sit/stay.
2. Have the jump really low to start with.
3. Go to the other side of the jump so you’re standing directly in front of them and say ‘over’ and move backwards to encourage them to come to you
4. When they get over the jump and reach you, have a really good play with them.
5. Repeat several times so they learn that the ‘over’ trick means go over the jump.
6. Now start to stand to the side and practice.
7. Say ‘over’ and as they go over say ‘good.’ and have a good play with them as they land.
8. Now you can start to incorporate another jump afterwards too without having a sit/stay in between.

11. Roll Out A Yoga Mat

Teach your dog to help prepare for yoga for you.

Steps

1. Have the towel or yoga mat laid out flat in front of you and then roll it up.
2. As you roll up the mat, hide a treat in each roll until it’s totally rolled up except for perhaps a 5cm at the end with treats sprinkled on it.
3. Bring your dog in and allow him to explore the towel/encourage and point out the treats he can see and eat.
4. You can initially ‘help’ by unrolling a little bit if needed.
5. Over repetitions, have fewer and fewer treats hidden in the towel so it’s a smooth roll out.
6. Add the cue ‘do you want to do some yoga?’ (or whatever you like.) before placing the towel down once he’s confident.

12. Crawl

Teach your dog to commando crawl towards you.

Steps

1. Ask your down to go into the lay down trick.
2. Have a few treats in a closed hand and place it close to your dog’s nose so they can smell them.
3. Draw your hand back really slowly, keep your hand slightly lower than your dog’s nose to prevent encouraging them to get up.
4. As soon as your dog shuffles forwards, reward this.
5. Keep rewarding every little shuffle forward until they’re confident in this movement
6. Now you can reward every other movement for this trick and build up how far they move before getting a treat.
7. Once they’ve been able to shuffle forwards a meter or so, you can now start adding your verbal cue- say ‘crawl’ and then lure in a similar way to you had been.
8. Over repetitions, you’ll be able to reduce how much luring you’re doing each time.

13. Sit Pretty Trick

Teach your dog to sit up on their haunches with their paws up.

Steps

1. Ask your dog to sit.
2. Have a handful of treats in your closed hand and pop this in front of your dog’s nose without letting them have any.
3. Slowly raise your hand upwards so they have to stretch their head up, as soon as you get one (or even both) paws up in the air, reward them.
4. Once they’re confidently lifting paws, now gradually extend the time they are holding their back straight and paws in the end, before rewarding.
5. Over repetitions they’ll get stronger and more able to hold this position.
6. Start adding the verbal cue- say ‘beg/pretty/say please’, then lure in the same way.
7. This trick requires strong core muscles so don’t expect a perfect position straight away, build up their muscles through repetitions and gradually building up their ability to hold the position.

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