20 Top Tricks to Teach your Dog and Improve your Life as a Pupper Pawrent

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Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Jul 7, 2026 10:45 AM EDT

There are so many different tricks to teach your dog that it can feel quite overwhelming and even cause some pupper pawrents to give up. So we went ahead and handpicked our top 20 tricks to teach your dog and improve your life as a pupper pawrent. Because investing in your doggo should also feel like investing in yourself.

New pupper pawrents can spend days and weeks scrolling through Reddit's r/Dogtraining subreddit learning about the different approaches and results of certain training methods. But they can be a little hard to swallow considering they involve so much effort on your part, only for the result to feel less than meaningful. So instead of letting you search through the sea of pawssible tricks to teach your dog, we figured we would find 20 of the most helpful moves that make both yours and your dog's life that much better.

Some are light hearted and good for a good giggle such as the dog who was taught to 'limp' (a.k.a walk on three legs). Some are well mannered like the pup who was taught to bow as a form of introduction to other hoomans. And some will save your back after a long day at the office and colossally confuse your friends and family such as the canine child who was taught to gently remove socks on command. So we invite you to dive in and discover what wonderful tricks you would like to teach your dog next to make both your lives that much better. Pawsonally we love the 'bang bang' move, as well as the pawrent who somehow made nail trimming the easiest task in the world. 
 

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  • 01
    "I taught my dog to gently pull socks off of my feet. Now I sic him on unsuspecting family and friends who have their feet on the coffee table."
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  • 02
    ColonelKetchup13 Fix it. Dog untangles himself from his leash. Basically I said "fix it" and would tug the leash out from under his paw. So he was the one lifting his paw. Praised it and kept going on our walk. Rinse and repeat everytime it happened
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  • 03
    devendiva taught my dog to put his toys away. Everyone is always super impressed with this trick. I started with a ball and drop it, then moved on to introducing the toy box and placing the Treat inside when he dropped the ball, he figured out pretty fast that if he put the ball in the toy box that he would get his treat sooner.
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  • 04
    [deleted] "Close the door!" I used a target stick aimed for the key hole(he's a big dog), it took maybe 30 minutes. The trick I had taught him before that was "fetch my slippers!" and that resulted in piles of shoes accumulating at my feet every time I sat down and stopped paying him attention. But he can't fetch piles of shoes if the door to the hallway is closed.
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    selfmade117 His and our favorite is "shake hands". It is much more formal than "paw" especially when it is accompanied by a "nice to meet you". He also loves doing it. He can never turn it down lol
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    H
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    justheretomakeaspoon K. ng cockroaches. She ked one and we rewarded her like crazy. So she did it again. And now we are animalfree. Nothing is passing her. Even flies she hunts down.
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  • You know it is actually rather amusing. When we made this collection we were thinking about what a pawrent can teach their pup in order to make their relationship easier. We never for a moment considered that someone would train their doggo to take care of problems that are usually exclusive to hoomans. That is some genius level stuff. But why stop with the cockroaches? We would go as far as to say running off debt collectors and putting out the bins on trash day should be next up on the list of lessons. 
     

  • 08
    GRB23 I taught my dog "whisper". With a lot of patience he will give a really soft bark, something its a huff of breath, sometimes it's a really low growl.
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  • 09
    AC-1DIRTY Up. When I give the command while patting my chest, he will jump into my arms, and let me hold him. I started by sitting in a chair with a toy, and praising him when he jumped onto my lap. Afterwards I removed the chair, and gradually moved up from a sitting position, into just standing.
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    duckbokki Hide and seek! We used the stay command and have him sit in a certain spot in the house. Then we will go hide, call his name and he will come looking for us! Treat him when he finds you and it's a really easy way to provide mental stimulation but also have a fun time. Also helps to keep children busy as well if you have them take the role of the ones who hide.
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    Prystyne Taught my dog how to wave back when I say hi to her! It mutated from shake, to high five to just hi!
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    ladyxlucifer "Go around me". Whenever my big dog is on a leash, he used to have a bad habit of getting tangled around me. I'd have the leash in my right hand and he'd go to my left side. I tell him go around me. He goes back to the right side so he's not tripping me up anymore.
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  • Ok for anyone with a big dog you know how impactful this one is. Life is easy with a small dog, you walk around and at worst take a small step over their leash if they get tangled up in your legs. But a big dog…you have to hope that you managed to do the vertical splits in time to release your legs before your buffalo of a dog decides to keep walking, thereby tying your legs together like the villains in Home Alone. And you know what happened to them the moment that fairy light cord started to pull.
     

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    Gondork77 I taught him to "limp" by hopping on three legs. How I taught it is a little bit complicated, but basically it started with shake and then we slowly shaped that into hopping on three legs. My other favorite is "wave", we spent a lot of time generalizing the behavior so now pretty much anyone can wave at him and he'll wave back.
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  • 16
    Elysiumthistime Bow, I do a sweeping downward hand movement, like you would if you were on stage taking a bow and that's her cue to go into a play bow or stretch, she'll stay in that pose until I raise up out of my own bow
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  • 17
    Diphthong Bikini I taught my dog to gently pull socks off of my feet. Originally meant to teach him to open a drawer, but ended up abandoning the idea. Hold old sock with stuffing inside, reward for interest. Then reward for mouthing gently. Then reward for gently mouthing at the toe of the sock, then pulling. Now I sic him on unsuspecting family and friends who have their feet on the coffee table. Chaotic good dog.
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  • 18
    lolalaughed "let me see your bɩ t" when ever my dog would stretch i would compliment her and give her that command, she quickly realized if she did it she got a treat. She loves foot too much and can't be food motivated bc she will not care about anything but I've noticed that i can get her to do tricks if she already sort of does it.
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    jumparound988 My favorite: I touch my nose and he jumps up and boops my nose. Essentially the basic touch command... he won't do this for the elbow/another body part though, only the nose haha Probably everyone else's favorite: "Dance", he stands on his hind legs and does a 360 twirl. I learned while trying to keep food away that he can balance on his back legs, so I started spinning treats around him until he could follow.
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    hananah_bananana So far it's been Sit Pretty. Just held treats above her nose and slowly went up. Took her a little bit to build that strength but now she easily does it! We just started working on weave (between our legs) and go around to untangle herself as well as Split (sit between our legs).
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  • 22
    trench23 Police (Polizei) Pointing with a finger p I to a near wall or tree. Dog leans with his front feet to the wall. After searching/petting his belly and side i call safe and he is released. I learnt that trick at a Dönerbude from a guy with his pitbull :-)
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  • 23
    buy_me_a_pony My favorite trick is "in". I point to a room, house, open car, pool, bath tub, etc. And he'll go in. It makes bathing a 55lb dog so much easier because I'm not lifting him. I started with telling him to go into an open room and praising/treating when he did and then slowly built up to the car, house and bath tub. He also knows the reverse "out".
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    VadersWarrior Bang Bang. My daughter pretends to she tag n, and says "bang bang," and Mozzie does a slow, dramatic d th scene. Lol!
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  • 26
    Mischiefmack When I take out the nail trimmers, she rolls over on her back, and hands me a paw. It was't hard to train, I trained her how to lay on her back (we do play dd, this was the longest part to train), and how to do paw. We combined them, and worked on her tolerance of her paw being held, touched, and clipped.
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