Keeping Your Labrador Fit and Active Through Labrador Training

According to your dog’s personal needs, you need to ensure that your dog is kept physically trim and mentally exercised through Labrador training. Labradors are highly intelligent dogs that will need good stimuli at home whether or not they have their handlers-trainers with them at home.

Interactive games that bring the two of you together are a fun way to train your dog in accomplishing basic and routine tasks. These can also give the dog that mental simulation it may be sorely missing. Take a look at these guidelines for an easy-to-follow retrieval exercise which can be tried in your own backyard:

The first exercise, called Fetch, starts by getting the dog to sit, and throwing the dog’s pet item—like a treat or toy—some meters away from both of you. Get your dog to fetch, if it runs, follow by a few meters behind.

Give and Take is the next part of the activity. As the dog picks up the toy, run away so that the dog pursues after you. When the dog catches up, turn to it and put one hand out, telling it to “give” you the toy. As the dog does so, reward it with a treat from the other hand.

Keep up the practice and play with the dog over the weeks, bit by bit adding to the distance that the dog has to bring the bone over. If your dog gets shows signs of not enjoying the game anymore, stop in order to sustain the motivation of your dog. The next time the dog is ready for play, try throwing things for discarding like an old shoe or a slipper. But this time, you need to call out “Fetch the slipper” as you throw the item. You also should not change the items too fast, otherwise the dog will not have a reasonable amount of time to learn what are the name of the items. Due to your Labrador training, soon enough your dog may be able to retrieve items for you as you name or call it.

Lastly, food is of course the one creative element of your dog’s daily routine that, if used inventively, can keep your dog amused for endless hours.

Rather than just feeing your dog from its bowl, try adding a new twist to how you feed it by hiding the dog’s food in small portions all over the house, allowing the dog to hunt for it by sniffing it out. Kongs are examples of toys effective at keeping dogs preoccupied for hours and hours with food puzzles. Activity balls sort of work in the same way as kongs, but instead use small dry treats or food. Place a handful of treats inside, and watch the dog roll the ball in the floor to get more treats.