Teach Your Dog to do Yoga...

If any of you know us, you know Aston, our dog, is like family to Chris and I. I think I spend more time with Aston than I do with my own husband. Sad thought...but she is good company!  I have loved dogs my whole life and Aston is my very first dog on my own without the help of my parents.  Man, Chris and I lucked out! Aston is a Border Collie/Aussie Cattle Dog mix. She was just a mutt that we bought off Kijiji one random weekend. Best purchase ever!

If you have met Aston you know she is the sweetest, most patient and accommodating dog EVER! (I am a little biased though) She is naturally well behaved. That is not saying we didn't train her like mad as a pup but she was easier to train that most dogs I know. She just aims to please!

One of the funkiest things I love about Aston is her desire to learn tricks!  She does the usual sit, stay, come but she does some fun ones too like speak, jump, dance, paws up, pick the right toy, shake a paw then the other, then the other, crawl and roll-over.  When she was a puppy, I realized how easy it was for her to learn these simple tricks, so I went out and bought a book of 101 dog tricks.  One of the only things she ever did bad was EAT the book of 101 dog tricks.  We came home to paper scraps everywhere!  I guess that's a 102 tricks she was planning on learning ;)

My favourite of all the ticks she does is Yoga!  As downward dog is a natural movement your dog makes every single day you can teach them to do it on your command!

Every time you dog gets up to stretch and does the usual Down Dog, say their name followed by a really loud and excited YOGA...as excited as you can muster!! Once they do the pose tell them they are good dog and give them lots of pets and maybe a treat. You may get some funny looks at first!!

So for the next two weeks make sure to exclaim how proud you are of your dog when they do Yoga. You can even incorporate a hand motion if you want. I keep my arms parallel to each other and point to the ground while saying YOGA!

The next step is to catch your dog, BEFORE they go into the stretch. Therefore, you can 'command' them to do Down Dog even before they were naturally going to do it. This makes them feel like you are telling them to so something. Do this for another week or so.

If all goes to plan and your dog responds well to praise you should be able to tell your dog to do Yoga on command!  They don't have to be stretching, they could just be standing waiting for their dinner.   
 

Aston....YOGA!!!

As far as tricks go this one is my favorite! I think she knows it and maybe I am a little overkill on it. She tends to do it once, then if I want her to do it again, she just gives me frustrated look before begrudgingly doing it again. Like I said, accommodating!

Namste xo.