There are all kinds of reasons to play training games with your dog. There’s a whole list of positives: improve manners, build trust, inspire confidence, etc. But the most important one for most people is that it deepens and strengthens your bond with your dog.
Many people think that because there are multiple people living in a home that the dog is a family pet. Maybe. But if one person is primarily responsible for that dog’s care, their bond is stronger. And if one person is always the one to play training games with that dog, that bond is powerful. If the same person both cares for, and plays training games with that dog – that relationship is unbreakable.
Unbreakable bond with your dog
We got an illustration of that this week. Fran’s 2-year-old Boston Terrier Simon is in need of some road work to build his stamina before his agility career takes off. Fran’s taking him for his workout at the time she’d normally play training games with her two other dogs, Tango and Booker.
Tango is a 12-year-old Brussels Griffon. If you don’t know Griffs, know that they’re generally one-person dogs. Tango was extraordinarily so when he was younger. You can read all about it in Fran’s book Tango: Transforming My Hellhound. He tried to bite anybody else.
He has mellowed through the years. Now Hope can handle him easily, and he generally pays pretty good attention to her. When Fran’s not home, he’s happy to follow Hope around instead.
But he doesn’t “get” playing training games with Hope. That’s reserved for his person. And Tango adores playing his training games. The game today was supposed to be “Put your toys away” which is his favorite in the world. He bounces when he retrieves the toys from the pile, he bounces when he heads over to the toy box to put them away.
Never heard it before
Tango is adorable when he sits there, stares at you, and has a completely blank look on his face. He never heard “Put your toys away!” before. Unless Fran says it.
The take-away here is that if you want your dog to be a family dog, everybody needs to play training games with him/her. (We wrote about this a couple of months ago too.) You can all play the same games. Or each person can have a unique training game. But everybody has to play.
If, on the other hand, your objective is that unbreakable bond between one individual and a dog, that person should play training games. Just once a day helps. Several 2-Minute-Training games per day will cement the relationship forever.