So, today I taught George the beginning of the trick “Wipe Paws.” Despite my video only showcasing the highlights of his progress, it was a fairly easy trick for him to grasp. He is by no means fully successful at this trick, but I believe this was a great start!

The hardest part of this trick was that George is used to the command of pointing to the floor as “lay down,” so many times he would lay on top of the mat instead. When he really wanted a treat, he would throw in a spin before laying down. Another component that messed up the flow of his practice is that my mum had come home from work and he got extremely hyper! However, he was shortly back on track.

I decided to document his trick progress as a video, as I believe it would be a great resource for me to look back on to see his progress. Additionally, it is nice to have more videos of him and I together. (:

In order to learn this trick, I followed along the YouTube video Dog Trick Tutorial: “Clean Your Paws!” by Training Positive, who provided a clear step-by-step instruction. The first step was to roll a treat up inside of a rug. Typically, a dog will use either their snout or their paws to obtain the treat, you are to reward when they dig at the rug. The second step was to provide a high value treat if the dog used two paws to dig at the rug, if they use one paw, provide a lower value treat. Third, lay the rug out flat and practice rewarding the dog on the movement of digging on a flat rug. Lastly, curate environments and routines that the dog would utilize this trick, such as coming in from outside. In time, the dog will associate the process of coming inside and passing a rug to instantaneously wipe their feet.

I will continue to practice this trick for this upcoming week, and I am hoping by next week he will be successful with this trick.