Dog Training: Luring

Luring

Luring is a technique used to lead the dog to get the treat to get into the correct position. By definition, luring is "the process of encouraging the dog to follow a treat to get into the correct position," (Sundance, 44). Before reading about this, I unintentionally used the technique to teach my dog to do many tricks.  However, although luring can be used to teach majority of tricks, it cannot be used to teach tricks such as fetch.  

I used luring to make my dog sit and spin in circles.  When I used this technique I found that it was the easiest way to teach the trick.  Luring is easy to learn for both trainer and dog.  In addition, all I had to hold was the treat, unlike when I used a clicker.  The clicker tended to get in the way and I struggled to hold everything and multitask efficiently. 

Today I used luring to teach my dog to roll over. I was surprised how quickly she picked it up and that she picked up the whole trick right away.  Usually, she'll halfheartedly do the trick when I first teach her.  However, when teaching her to roll over, she easily understood where I was luring her with the treat.  In addition, I think the luring technique was more useful than other techniques such as molding her body to do the trick. 

To conclude, I believe that luring was by far the most simple, clear, and efficient approach to training my dog.  However, it has limitations and cannot be used for some of the tricks I want to teach my dog, so I will have to find other methods for these.  Overall, my dog reacted well when I used this procedure and I think that luring can be effective for other dogs too.

As I said before, I have used luring to teach my dog tricks without realizing it. Have you unintentionally used luring to teach your dog a trick?  If not, what trick would you like to use this method to teach?

Sundance, Kyra. The Dog Tricks and Training Workbook: a Step-by-Step Interactive Curriculum to Engage, Challenge, and Bond with Your Dog. Quayside Pub. Group, 2009.