Dogs, just like children can be quite messy. They can play with their toys and leave them spread across the room, hence giving you a hectic time to keep cleaning up after them.
Well, the good news is, there is a solution to every problem. You can actually train your dog to learn how to pick up his toys after playtime is over.
Here are 7 steps to teach your dog to pick up his toys.
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What are the requirements?
You will definitely need the following items:
Before you can begin to train your dog how to clean up his own toys, you need to make him understand the “take it” and “drop it” command.
For your dog to understand how to take the toy, you can get hold of his favorite toy and swing it before him saying “take it”. If he takes the toy you can give him a reward.
For your puppy to understand the “drop it” command, he should be having the toy while you hold his favorite treat, ready to reward him if he drops the toy.
Step 1: Get a good toy container
First, you need to have a central place for keeping his toys. A good toy container would be the most ideal place to keep all your dog’s toys.
Get a toy container that has a mouth that is wide enough to enable your dog easily drop the toys.
The toy container should also be low enough to match your dog’s height. It would be quite unfair to have a little puppy strain to put toys in a toy container twice his own height.
Step 2: Make the toy container accessible
You need to look for a strategic location and place your dog’s toy container. This should be a place where your dog can easily locate whenever he cleans up his toy mess.
Do not keep shifting his toy container, this will simply confuse your dog.
Step 3: Scatter the toys
Start the training exercise by scattering the toys all over the place.
Make sure that you have your dog’s favorite treats ready. This could be his favorite snack or whatever he enjoys snacking.
Step 4: Trick or treat time!
Play a trick on your dog by placing some of his favorite treats in the toy container which should be empty. Then you need to look for his best toy among the sea of toys and call your dog.
Lure him to take the toy and follow you along to the empty toy container. The “take it” command will definitely come in handy at this point.
Simply command him to take it into his mouth and drop it into the toy container. Once your dog gets to the toy container and sees his favorite treat, he will definitely drop the toy in it.
Step 5: Command for emphasis
Once the dog has dropped the toy in the toy container. You need to command him using familiar words like “clean up” or “toys away”.
This you ought to repeat several times until your dog registers those words in his mind. Whenever he will hear you utter those words, he will automatically know that it is time to clean up his toys.
Step 6: Get a clicker
When you are teaching your dog how to put his toys away, you can as well get a clicker which will be sort of a token that you associate with good manners.
You can also choose to give your dog little surprises as a reward for his good behavior. Your dog will obediently clean up his toys while looking forward to the treat thereafter.
Make sure that you shower him with praise when he does clean up his toys.
Step 7: Repeat the exercise
You need to repeat this training exercise until your dog learns how to pick up his toys.
He needs to be able to understand that cleaning up his toys requires him to pick up the specific toy and place it in the right place, which is the toy container.
In a nutshell, these are simple 7 steps to teach your dog to pick up his toys.
Once your dog learns how to properly put his toys away, you can now stop putting his favorite treats in the toy container and simply hand them to him when he does.
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