Teaching a puppy to lure is simple, and can be done in one or two session in most cases; but this is a skill that you can and will practice daily will your puppy over their lifetime. Start by holding a piece of food by your pups nose and move it slowly to let your puppy follow it. Once they catch up to your hand for a couple steps say “yes”, feed them the food and start over.
At the beginning make sure to feed them after a couple steps, so they don’t give up; if they give up you’re moving too fast, so go back to the beginning and feed after one or two steps. Once they know what they’re doing, you can start feeding them less often to make it more difficult. To progress you can start luring them over objects, under objects and in patterns.
We use luring to teach most, if not all of the tricks that we teach, so this is important for the puppy to fully understand!
For puppies that love eating, simply do this at meal time with their own food, after a couple meals they’ll likely understand luring. For pickier puppies get the good stuff out!
Things that even the pickiest puppies like are:
- Cubed Cheese
- Chopped hot dogs
- Boiled chicken or other meat
- Dehydrated liver
- Roll over dog food cut up
- Or any other treat your dog loves!
Have fun, and let us know how your puppy does!
