Teaching an Old Dog Some New Tricks

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with a pair of Dachshund, Rita a five-year-old recent rescue dog and Wrigley a ten-year-old, who needed help with remedial potty training and training basics such as training the sit command, down command and to stand.

After I arrived I chatted with the guardian about her main dog behavior concerns and she told me that she recently rescued Rita from a puppy mill and wanted to help her stop pottying in the house. I suggested to her that we set up a puppy play pen for her with a bed, water, toys and potty pads to help her break the habit of going potty in her kennel. But first, to help her learn how to calm down and look to her guardian for direction I wanted to teach the dogs some basic training, which you can watch below.

As you can see in the video Wrigley caught on very quickly! One of the dog training tricks that I used is to hold the treat right in front of the dogs’ nose and help lure her into the correct position. Then I gave her the treat right away with the command word to create a positive association.

By the end of the session Wrigley and Rita were looking to their guardian for direction and learning new basic commands to help them use our Petting with a Purpose technique, to reward the dogs for good behavior. We wrapped up this session with Rita and Wrigley’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.