Let’s have fun
Teaching your dogs tricks and back end awareness
Would you like to deepen your relationship with your dog? Promote your dog’s body awareness and contribute to your dog’s physical and mental well-being? Build your dog’s confidence? Have fun?
Trick training
A fun way to mentally stimulate your dog is teaching them tricks like “shake paws”, “roll over” or “put your toys away”. The value of enganging your dog like this is further reaching than you might think. Yes, the end result will be your dog knowing a trick but it’s the journey that is filled with opportunities to deepen the bond with your dog.
You’ll get to know your dog in a special way. How do they think? How do they problem solve? How confident are they in themselves? Where’s their frustration threshold? What do they really enjoy? How can you motivate your dog? How much fun can you have with each other?
Some of the “by-products” of teaching your dog tricks are
- your dog is more focussed on you in general
- unsure dogs gain confidence
- a mentally stimulated dog is a more content dog
- that great feeling when your dog can do something previously impossible because you showed them how
Backend awareness
Did you know that most dog’s body awareness ends at their shoulders? Their back end just follows along while their front end is making all the decisions. Watch a dog navigating a set of stairs. They will usually bound up or down. If you ask them to walk stairs slowly most dogs are very uncoordinated exactly because they lack rear end awareness. The good news is that there are many fun ways to help your dog to grow more conscious of their hind legs and paws.
Backend awareness helps to build muscles, coordination and balance hence increases your dog’s overall fitness which plays a vital role in accident and injury prevention. Your dog’s growing ability to adapt and organise in time and space (called proprioception) cultivates their somatic intelligence, contributing to a healthy and happy life.
Backend awareness activities are also helpful to prevent as well as help your dog recovering from cruciate injuries and neurological conditions or when suffering from hip dysplasia.