Tricks, Puzzles & Clicks

Tricks and puzzles help us understand our dog’s wants while we help them to dispense extra energy after a walk or an exciting visit from family.  Tricks and puzzles are invaluable enrichment for your dog’s life – and fun for you, too!

Taught by Lisa Edwards, CDPT-KA, CDBC, this class focuses on shaping tricks and puzzle solving skills while developing clear, positive markers via clickers and others tools in the world of positive reinforcement.

Tricks are a lovely way to take a behavior your dog insists on doing (that you may not like so much) and shape it into something that works for everyone.  For example:

The jumping dog learns to go up in the air and balance like Scooby Doo instead of jumping on people.

The dog who is constantly giving paw learns to play patty-cake instead but mostly only when cued.

And the dog who chews everything they can find not nailed down in your house learns to pick up strange things and bring them to you instead of eating them while you are not looking.

All too often when a dog keeps doing something over and over again they are telling us they enjoy it or otherwise need to do it for one reason or another.  If we are annoyed by these behaviors and just say no (or even punish the dog) for doing them, we are not helping the dog because we are actually not teaching them anything.

As their parents, our job is to help our dogs understand what we want from them and help them to accomplish it.

Puzzles are the very best way to dispense your dog’s extra energy.  Whether your dog is cranked up because it’s a yucky day out and you can’t go for a walk or your dog is cranked up because you just had a great walk and they’re now bouncing off the walls, puzzle toys will allow your dog to do what Nature intended for them to do.  Dogs are hunters and gatherers who are more cunning than we would like sometimes, so let’s give them the chance to use those smarts in ways that don’t drive us mad.

The dog who opens your closet doors to get your shoes out will have a blast with some of the higher end puzzle toys out there – and the ones I can teach you to make up yourself.  The dogs who currently aren’t getting into things will enjoy some of the easier puzzle toys we can come up with.  Either way, whether your dog is doing Advanced Sudogku or Sudogku for Beginners they will have a blast.

Additionally, we will polish your abilities to mark the exact behaviors you are looking for in your dog for more precise performance in all areas of your dog’s life.  Clickers, keep-going-praise and marker words will take center stage in getting your dog to move through the tricks and puzzles.

This class is ideal for anyone looking to ask their dogs to do animal assisted therapy, service work, SAR, competition – or to just be the best dog they can be.

The Tricks – are great for visiting and working dogs.  Tricks entertain clients on a visit, and when working in either visiting or service tricks allow your dog a moment of fun, stress-relieving exercise.  At home, tricks allow you to redirect your dog and to both enjoy a quick bit of fun together.

The Puzzles – are great when working in service or SAR.  Most of the training for these occupations requires a puzzle-acute canine mind and to be a successful service or SAR dog your dog needs to be a puzzle master.  At home, puzzles allow your dog the cognitive exercise the canine mind requires to keep from getting into trouble.

The Clicks – are a great way for you to become a better trainer as you learn both precise timing and the patience required to shape behaviors.

This class is six weeks long, meeting on a weekly basis at the same time and location.

Each weekly class is 50 minutes long and a wonderful mental workout for both the doggies and humans.

This class is open to anyone who has taken the H.E.A.R.T. class, the Three Dogs Training positive reinforcement Intermediate Manners, Behaviors and Relationships dog training class, or by pre-evaluation with Lisa.

This class can be taken as a whole course or teams can attend any number of classes that suit their schedules and needs.

The cost of the full course (all six classes) if paid in full is $150.00.  The cost for taking an individual class is $27.00 per class.

Here’s a quick video to show you what the class is like: