Can an old dog learn new tricks?
To put it simply: yes, they can.
But if you’ve never trained with your dog before, you shouldn’t expect it to be good at it right away. Dogs first need to get used to learning new things. If your dog has always just been lying on the couch and isn’t used to learning tricks, it’s not because it’s dumb that it can’t do it. It just needs to get used to learning new things first. And that is probably one of the most important things you can teach your dog — teaching it how to learn.
In the beginning, it doesn’t really matter what you train with your dog. What matters is that it gets used to learning new things and that training with you is something fun. For the dog, there’s not much difference between learning to come when called and learning to give a paw. It finds both things fun. So if your dog becomes super excited about training tricks with you, it will also automatically get better at all the important things like "come," "stay," "drop it," and so on. If you have taught your dog a few tricks, then next time you go for a walk, the dog will remember how much fun training was and will be more eager to come to you.
It’s also really good to teach your dog that new things are exciting. It helps it be less afraid of things it’s not used to. Just take something — for example, a piece of paper — and teach your dog different things with it. It’s good to reward the dog every time it does something with the object. That way, the dog can help come up with the trick itself and also learns that every time it engages with new things, it’s a good experience.
I’ve trained this a lot with Yuna, so now if I take a piece of paper or anything else, she’s already done five tricks with it before I’m even ready. She sits on it, digs at it with her paw, and picks it up in her mouth. It’s really great for dogs to learn that everything new is positive because it makes them much more confident and less afraid of everything.
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