January is National Train Your Dog Month. What fun to start off a new year thinking about training and improving your own skills and your dog’s. A great way is to try a new sport, or a new challenge within the sport you are already doing. For treibball this might mean to begin increasing distance, or add more balls, or work on ball control skills with challenging directionals. As long as your dog is ready for it, try a new challenge! One of my favorite  treibball training games is working corners-and during the cold months you can easily do this one in your house!

Corner game: Start by placing the ball in a corner with enough room for the dog to get behind it fairly easily. Click and reinforce any attempt by the dog to get behind the ball when you give your push cue. As they become confident getting behind the ball in the larger space, make the corner tighter and tighter until eventually the ball is right up against it. You want to shape your dog to use their nose to “dig” the ball away from wall with their nose/muzzle/head (but no paws allowed!) and then get their whole body behind it to push to you. Eventually you can transfer this game to corners all over your house, in between cabinets, etc. You can increase the sends from longer distances as you and your dog progress.

So have fun-play ball!