Hi everyone! In this week’s lesson, we will be talking about the Do More With Your Dog trick dog titling program. It is a separate organization from the American Kennel Club, however, their titles are transferrable to AKC titles. AKC titles, however, are not transferable to Do More With Your Dog (DMWYD).

Unlike AKC, for DMWYD you do not need to have a special registration number in order to submit for a title with them. But again, if you want to later transfer that title to AKC, then you will need to get an AKC number for those titles. 

The rules for the trick dog titles through Do More With Your Dog are going to be a bit different than AKC. At the novice level, they are not expecting perfection on your tricks, but again, if you plan on working towards more advanced titles, your goal should ultimately be fluency and your dog understanding the trick you want them to learn on a cue. 

At the novice level, you will need to demonstrate 15 tricks from their checklist. There is not a “handler’s choice” for write-ins like there is in AKC. You can use more advanced tricks towards your novice title if you wish, but you cannot repeat tricks for each level. If you demonstrate a trick at the “Advanced” or “Expert” level, that counts as 2 tricks towards your 15 needed tricks. In terms of criteria for what those tricks should look like, they refer you to look at any of their trick books by Kyra Sundance, who is the founder of Do More With Your Dog. 

To earn your title, you will need to have your tricks evaluated live and in-person or via video by one of their Certified Trick Dog Instructors (CTDI). Through their website, www.domorewithyourdog.comyou can find a list of their CTDIs. Through video, they have an option to share the video in one of their Facebook groups. 

They do allow lures using treats or toys, but they cannot be used for more than 50% of your demonstrated tricks. Again as a reminder, try not to be too reliant on lures if these may be foundation tricks for more advanced tricks later on down the road. You may not use physical manipulation at any point, for example, you can’t push your dog’s bottom into a sit, push the shoulders down for a down, pick the foot up for a shake, etc. The dog needs to choose to offer these behaviors on their own or on cue. 

It is also explicitly listed in the rules that tricks must be taught using positive reinforcement methods. This is applicable to all their levels of tricks. 

Here is a list of their Novice Trick Dog list. Again, you need to demonstrate 15 of these tricks or you can look ahead and demonstrate some of their more advanced tricks if you want. 

The good news is that if you have completed our Freshman Course, you already have 7-8 of these tricks and if you have completed our Sophomore Course, then you have 12-13 tricks already. 

For the Freshman Course, your dog should already know come when called, down, sit, drop it, loose leash walking (30 ft). For hand signals, you could use a hand cue for sit, down, go to place, touch, get into the reinforcement zone, etc. Your hand target is the “touch hand” behavior. You could make an argument for the focus (hold eye contact for 6 seconds) if you have built that duration into your check-ins. 

For the Sophomore Course, the leave it for 10 seconds would be your impulse control for 10 seconds. We covered “paws up” in the Sophomore Course. The “wall stand” with the front paws on a wall can also be part of your “paws up” behavior we covered in the Sophomore Course, you would just apply the skill to a wall. For stay, 6 ft and 10 seconds, you could do that with sit or down and we covered that in the Sophomore Course as well. Their pedestal trick where you send the dog from 3 ft away would essentially be your “go to place” trick where you send them from 3 ft away. And their trick “peekaboo” where the dog goes between the legs is the “middle” game we taught in the Sophomore Course as well.