Teaching an ‘old’ dog new tricks is easy, no matter what age or breed!

Johnny Mae is a pitbull rescue from Austin, Texas. She’s about 3 years old and moved to Baltimore with her pet parent last year.

First off, pitbulls are great! There’s no need to fear or discriminate against them. ‘Pitbull’ is a type of dog,usually including the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier breeds. Pitbulls were originally bred as English bull-baiting dogs. They were used to bite large animals such as bulls and bears in the face and hold them down. Pitbulls were extremely popular on this side of the pond too. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, they got a bad rap 😦

While it’s the easier to encourage the right behaviours from the puppy stage, training can occur at any age.

Johnny Mae learned to sit, down and ‘high-five’ in a few short weeks. She had a good recall (i.e. come when called), and understood ‘stay’ already.  Her pet parent and I are hoping she obeys these commands while outdoors too. We recently introduced her to simple sniffing games too 🙂

Remember, it’s never too late to teach your dog, anything, for that matter! Dogs have real sharp minds, and it’s up to you, the pet parent, to provide mental stimulation in addition to physical stimulation.