# Ep 106 Can You Teach an Old Dog New Tricks? The Secret to Preventing Cognitive Decline

An episode of [Help! My Dog: The Podcast. Dog Behaviour & Training Strategies that Work!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1721245241), 12 Dec 2025, 22 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2287608/episodes/18331867-ep-106-can-you-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks-the-secret-to-preventing-cognitive-decline.mp3

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”…or can you? Have you ever wondered what actually happens inside your dog’s brain as they age or how to keep it sharp and young for years to come? We’re exploring why some senior behaviours appear seemingly out of nowhere and why they aren’t always about age at all. You’ll learn what cognitive flexibility really means and how it affects everything from routine-obsession to nighttime pacing. Most importantly, we dive into simple, everyday ways to help your dog stay mentally agile, confident, and adaptable and how to reverse those signs of cognitive decline and ageing in your senior dog. Whether your dog is already in their golden years, just tipping into that 7–8 year old age range, or still youthful and bouncy, this episode will give you a fresh perspective on keeping their brain young. ................ Whether your dog is unpredictable with other dogs or predictably bad… Whether it looks like freezing, barking, lunging or running away… Whether you are just starting out on your dog-owning journey or your dog has been labelled as having a “behaviour problem”… … this episode is for you and is going to give you huge insights! Want to join the Help! My Dog Online HUB? Here's the link: www.helpmydog.com/hub Dr Tom Mitchell is a world-renowned veterinarian, behaviourist and dog trainer and director of the Behavet behaviour clinic (rated Excellent on Trustpilot), which sees over 400 pet behaviour consultations each and every month no matter where you are in the world. In 2023, he founded Help! My Dog, an online dog behaviour learning platform to help even more owners all over the world and show that dog behaviour transformation is not only possible but it's FUN, with the right know-how! Make sure to subscribe/follow the podcast for the free weekly episodes! Useful Links: Follow Help! My Dog on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpmydogofficial/ Schedule a Consultation with Behavet: https://www.beha.vet/ Follow Behavet on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/behavet

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_00: You can't teach an old dog new tricks, right?
[0:03] SPEAKER_00: And the actual truth is that you absolutely can teach an old dog new tricks.
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: And it's even easier to teach an old dog new tricks if you take these things into consideration.
[0:14] SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, a warning.
[0:17] SPEAKER_00: The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some young listeners.
[0:22] SPEAKER_00: This is real life, and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic.
[0:26] SPEAKER_00: So listen on at your own peril.
[0:29] SPEAKER_00: As a veterinarian, dog behaviourist, best-selling author and trainer over the past decade, I've had an obsession with transforming the behaviour of dogs, understanding their brains and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home.
[0:44] SPEAKER_00: I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality.
[0:51] SPEAKER_00: In fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog Gorse was bitten by a dog 20 times her size.
[0:57] SPEAKER_00: And suddenly our life of stress-free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner.
[1:08] SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
[1:09] SPEAKER_00: Tom.
[1:10] SPEAKER_00: This is the Help My Dog Podcast, and this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you and having a few laughs along the way.
[1:20] SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Help My Dog Podcast.
[1:26] SPEAKER_00: And today, what we are going to be talking about is how to keep your dog's brain youthful and young, right?
[1:37] SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, as soon as as soon as I say that, many of you will think of that saying that everybody says of you can't teach an old dog new tricks, right?
[1:46] SPEAKER_00: And the actual truth is that you absolutely can teach an old dog new tricks, and it's even easier to teach an old dog new tricks if you take these things into consideration.
[1:57] SPEAKER_00: Um, and everything that I'm going to talk about today, guys, um it covers both a preventative approach to making sure that you know your dog's brain stays young, but also it will cover how to reverse potential brain aging that maybe your dog has experienced right now.
[2:22] SPEAKER_00: And and and to if you're wondering if your dog has experienced any of that, well, first of all, we have to think, well, what makes a senior dog?
[2:29] SPEAKER_00: What is the age cutoff?
[2:31] SPEAKER_00: And and actually, the age where you need to start really start considering that your dog might be having senior changes, especially if we're not doing anything about it, is for about seven, eight years old, right?
[2:42] SPEAKER_00: Um, and that will change depending on if they're a giant breed or a tiny breed, yeah.
[2:48] SPEAKER_00: Um, but the reality is seven or eight years old, dogs are transitioning from being in that adult stage of of life to instead that senior stage of life.
[3:00] SPEAKER_00: And so everything that I'm going to talk about works for both a prevention and also reversal, okay?
[3:08] SPEAKER_00: And so what is going on in your dog's brain when we're thinking about um those senior changes?
[3:14] SPEAKER_00: Well, the main I say the main, one of the key things that happens is that you get this reduction in flexibility, okay?
[3:26] SPEAKER_00: And what flexibility is, cognitive flexibility, is a dog's ability to learn different things in the same situation, okay?
[3:37] SPEAKER_00: So that is to learn a new thing despite the environment or the situation being the same.
[3:44] SPEAKER_00: Um and interestingly, that can that can mean that um you know dogs that struggle with flexibility, and it's not, I'll be honest, it's not just an age-related thing.
[3:53] SPEAKER_00: Some dogs struggle with this skill of flexibility and need to be taught it actually from a young age.
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the some of the things that you might might see is that um dogs that are very inflexible, you might notice a little symptom of they get quite obsessed with routine, yeah?
[4:10] SPEAKER_00: And they get quite obsessed with things happening when they anticipate things should happen, and they can't deviate from that, and they get quite stressed and quite anxious when those situations arise where they expected one thing but something else is happening, and they you find that they almost go into like um implementing like a coping strategy, right?
[4:35] SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, those the the the kind of typical things that we might see senior dogs doing might be pacing and panting and not being able to settle, um, or just simply standing at the door and barking, right?
[4:50] SPEAKER_00: Or barking at strange times of night.
[4:53] SPEAKER_00: And so you know these characteristics of what we all think of as senior changes, yeah, they come with being senior, but they come as a consequence of this lack of flexibility, which we can not only prevent, we can even do something about it when they have become a little bit inflexible, and also it can affect dogs of all ages.
[5:12] SPEAKER_00: So, this is a really great gift that we can give each and every one of your dogs.
[5:17] SPEAKER_00: So that's the first change that happens that I'm going to be focusing on today.
[5:21] SPEAKER_00: But there are other changes as well.
[5:22] SPEAKER_00: And if you found this episode useful, then let us know by leaving us a review on you know Apple Podcasts where you can like write actually write a review, just go to app search Apple Podcasts and then search Help My Dog and you know write write us a little written review when it then helps other people.
[5:39] SPEAKER_00: But also, then we know that this is a topic that you want more of, and then I can teach on this even more, right?
[5:46] SPEAKER_00: Um, so what how should we think about this?
[5:50] SPEAKER_00: How what is actually going on in your dog's brain?
[5:53] SPEAKER_00: Well, how I like to think about it is in it's it's a bit of a weird visual, but it's gonna be you I think you're gonna find it handy, is that young dogs, and that's a generalization, or I should say dogs that are very, very flexible, cognitively flexible, right?
[6:12] SPEAKER_00: Their brains are like this big rabbit warren of tunnels, and each tunnel represents a different choice or decision, um, or you know, even down to there's a there there are choice there are choice tunnels for different tricks and different things that they can learn, right?
[6:31] SPEAKER_00: And they're effectively infinite possibilities in any situation, and these tunnels you can kind of think of them as this big bowl of cooked spaghetti, right?
[6:42] SPEAKER_00: So it's soft, it's malleable, it's all the tunnels are like the same size, all of the bits of spaghetti are the same size, and there are loads of them, and it's like overflowing, there are so many, right?
[6:57] SPEAKER_00: And what happens through life is that actually maybe certain choices get used more than others.
[7:05] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, days start to look the same, right?
[7:09] SPEAKER_00: And this is true of you know all years, let alone senior years, right?
[7:14] SPEAKER_00: You potentially you aren't taught as many new tricks, right?
[7:19] SPEAKER_00: You're not taught to do as many different things.
[7:22] SPEAKER_00: Um, and in turn, there are certain tunnels or certain choices or certain bits of spaghetti that just get used more and more and more.
[7:31] SPEAKER_00: And as they get used more and more and more, they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and they become quite hard and quite brittle, right?
[7:38] SPEAKER_00: So almost think of it now as like we're transitioning from really soft, copious amounts of cooked spaghetti to now we're just getting to the point where there are very set spaghetti strands that are uncooked, they're hard and they're big, right?
[7:56] SPEAKER_00: And and um, and all of the other like spaghetti that was there just gets so small in comparison that our our dogs aren't aware of those choices, even.
[8:07] SPEAKER_00: They're not aware that they can use those tunnels or make those decisions in that situation.
[8:12] SPEAKER_00: And so effectively what happens is they don't lose the ability to learn new stuff, they don't lose the ability to make different choices, but the choices that they have been making and have been making consistently, potentially throughout their days, throughout their months, and throughout their years, they become so obvious that they can't, that they struggle to see different ways.
[8:40] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they struggle to see different choices are available to them.
[8:44] SPEAKER_00: And this really gets accelerated in the senior years because there are some brain changes, some, you know, whether you want to call them physiological or not, some brain changes that happen that make it potentially even harder to access certain pathways.
[9:00] SPEAKER_00: Um now, a little side note, really interesting, this one, um, is you know the dogs that have to constantly learn new things throughout their life, and the dogs that have to that actually do get to use a variety of choices and tunnels in their life, um, and and actively we as owners are training them more throughout their life and trying to guide their behavior to do different things, they tend to be the naughty dogs.
[9:28] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[9:29] SPEAKER_00: And so what's really interesting that we see really commonly, and we'd love there to be, you know, some some you know actual research on this beyond our like knowledge in from working with so many different dogs and so many different um behaviour cases, is that actually the naughty dogs um are less prone to developing what we all refer to as cognitive decline in their senior years because actually they are being trained more throughout their life.
[9:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it and cognitive decline struggles often happen to the dogs that actually they're pretty good and they pretty they make decent choices all the time, right?
[10:08] SPEAKER_00: And they don't get this opportunity for their owners to practice teaching them different choices despite the situation being the same.
[10:17] SPEAKER_00: And the thing about flexibility and cognitive flexibility is you can kind of think of it a little bit like a muscle.
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: The more your dog learns flexibility, the more your dog practices being flexible, making a variety of different choices, doing a variety of different things every day, right?
[10:34] SPEAKER_00: The bigger the muscle gets and the easier that it is.
[10:36] SPEAKER_00: And it's not dissimilar from us humans, right, is it?
[10:40] SPEAKER_00: Where you know sometimes we get a little bit in a routine and we are, you know, every day is looking a bit similar, and somebody comes into our life and tries to get us to do something different, and we're like, oh my goodness, I can't do it.
[10:53] SPEAKER_00: Implementing coping strategy, right?
[10:56] SPEAKER_00: And so we all get it, and we get that actually the more you practice being flexible, the easier it becomes.
[11:03] SPEAKER_00: The more you practice being inflexible, the harder it comes, right?
[11:06] SPEAKER_00: The harder it becomes.
[11:07] SPEAKER_00: So, what are we gonna do about this?
[11:10] SPEAKER_00: Well, based on I I've spent a long time talking about the process and the why and how I like to think about it, because I think that really, really helps you in understanding why I'm gonna be talking about the things that I'm gonna be talking about.
[11:22] SPEAKER_00: Um, so number one, do different things each and every day.
[11:28] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it sounds so simple, but actually having a routine is very make is very makes your dog very, very vulnerable to becoming inflexible.
[11:38] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[11:39] SPEAKER_00: Instead try and mix up the routine, change the routine, move to a space of not having a routine.
[11:47] SPEAKER_00: But we've got to be aware, the fact that you're listening to this podcast and you're very engaged with it, because you got this far, probably means that to some extent you're aware that your dog is a bit inflexible.
[11:57] SPEAKER_00: And so what we can't do is just ditch the routine from one day to the next.
[12:01] SPEAKER_00: Go like, nope, now we are not doing this, because that's gonna be super stressful for them.
[12:06] SPEAKER_00: So instead of thinking about ditching the routine, what we like to think about is instead switching the routine, okay?
[12:13] SPEAKER_00: So if you normally do something every day at 4 p.m., do something, but do something else.
[12:20] SPEAKER_00: Right?
[12:20] SPEAKER_00: You normally, I don't know, your dog normally um eats at a certain time of day.
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: Well, how about they eat but not from a bowl?
[12:30] SPEAKER_00: They we do some training with them with some food, yeah?
[12:34] SPEAKER_00: Or we give them a long-lasting chew or a puzzle feeder or something like that.
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like there's still something there, but we're doing something different, and we're easing them into this idea of it of it not being um of that not being the thing, right?
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: So that would be the first thing.
[12:50] SPEAKER_00: Switch the routine, mix up the routine, swap things out, yeah.
[12:56] SPEAKER_00: Now the second one, and this is this is a really easy one, and I I include it just because while it's not absolutely transformational, it does make a difference, and it's really easy, especially if you've got an older dog.
[13:10] SPEAKER_00: Um, simple things like go for the walk, but go on a different route.
[13:15] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[13:16] SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna put this broadly under the into the category of enrichment, right?
[13:21] SPEAKER_00: Um, so effectively, what I like to think about with this is that we're tickling the spaghetti.
[13:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're going, okay, I'm going to make sure that every day we're tickling the spaghetti that doesn't get used in some way.
[13:36] SPEAKER_00: And that probably means new experiences, that probably means slightly changing the route.
[13:42] SPEAKER_00: That that might mean another thing, which is getting your dog tick effectively tickling your dog's figuring it out center in their brain, right?
[13:52] SPEAKER_00: Uh, the frontal cortex.
[13:54] SPEAKER_00: And and you know, it doesn't have to be challenging.
[13:57] SPEAKER_00: It could be as simple as like giving them puzzle feeders, it could be as simple as um giving them um a I don't know, a uh a stuffed cong, right?
[14:07] SPEAKER_00: Well it doesn't have to be complex, but the more we can tickle their brain in different areas, the more we can start to wake up those spaghetti that have probably become really, really tiny over the years because they're just not getting used as much as we want as much as we'd like them to get used.
[14:25] SPEAKER_00: So that'd be the second one thing.
[14:27] SPEAKER_00: Third thing, and this one's really like fun and goes against everything that we get told when it comes to our dog owning, is we should be teaching old dogs new tricks.
[14:42] SPEAKER_00: Okay, it not they can't, they absolutely can, and not only can they, but it's actually essential for their brain health that they do, yeah.
[14:54] SPEAKER_00: So my my um uh well I so w one of my um previous dogs, Peggy, um she got to the age of she was she was around around 18, 19 years old, okay?
[15:13] SPEAKER_00: Um she was really she was really elderly and you wouldn't have known it.
[15:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you would absolutely not have known it.
[15:20] SPEAKER_00: Um and in the end, you know, we we we had to say goodbye to her for you know cognitive decline and physical physical decline reasons, um that just you know it was kind of to to to say goodbye to her at that point.
[15:36] SPEAKER_00: Um but um she actually started with the first signs of of of this cognitive decline, probably about 12, 13 years old.
[15:46] SPEAKER_00: Um, and we'd managed to push it to 12 or 13 years old without even seeing a sign.
[15:51] SPEAKER_00: But then the signs started to come, you know, she started to do the pacing, she started to um she started to, you know, potentially seemed to get a little bit confused, right, and start barking at strange times of day.
[16:05] SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we had to like double down on on counteracting it even more.
[16:11] SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, and the reason why I tell you this story is because Peggy was learning tricks up to the age of 17.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: They weren't that, you know, they weren't that groundbreaking, those tricks when she got to 17.
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: They were probably really quite simple.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll talk a little bit about some examples of of those in a second.
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: But the point is, is that for that dog to get to 17, 18, 19 years old, to she was one of those pretty well-behaved dogs throughout her life that start, you know, that that probably was a little bit more prone to it, started at 12, 13 years old actually showing signs, and we managed to reverse those signs and and help her for another four years and keep her brain young.
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: Like that, hopefully, guys, goes some way to saying there is so much that we can do that is within our power that I want to empower you with.
[17:02] SPEAKER_00: I think we feel like age is some kind of incurable illness, and it's simply not the case.
[17:09] SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, and and actually the process of uh of making that not the case is actually loads of fun as well.
[17:17] SPEAKER_00: So, what kinds of things can you do in terms of trick training?
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, you can do the obvious ones.
[17:23] SPEAKER_00: You can do the the spins and the sit and the down and the stand and the pour and the nose target and whatever else, right?
[17:30] SPEAKER_00: All the obvious ones that you think of.
[17:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[17:33] SPEAKER_00: But one thing that is really powerful when it comes to growing your dog's flexibility is tricks that involve an object.
[17:41] SPEAKER_00: So for example, when you're in, I don't know, a charity shop, you're like at middle aisles of Aldi or Little, right?
[17:49] SPEAKER_00: And there's you sometimes see like random objects where you're like, hmm, not sure what the purpose of that outside of dog training is, but I can see a use in dog training.
[17:58] SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get that, right?
[17:59] SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a yoga ball, or I mean that does have a purpose, just to clarify.
[18:03] SPEAKER_00: I'm just thinking of other things that you have in your house.
[18:05] SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe it's a little, I don't know, a little stool to stand on, um anything, right?
[18:11] SPEAKER_00: A wooden spoon, whatever.
[18:14] SPEAKER_00: And what you can do is one, you can introduce that object as the the center of the training, yeah?
[18:21] SPEAKER_00: In other words, the what we're gonna do is the trick is to get them to interact with that object in some way.
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: Now that's a novel object, that's gonna be easier for them to think of new things to do with it.
[18:35] SPEAKER_00: It might be put a pore on it, it might be touch it with your nose, it might be pick it up, it might be put two pores on it, it might be put a back pore on it, two back pores on it, it might be lie down on top of it, right?
[18:44] SPEAKER_00: It might be put all four paws on it, whatever, you know, whatever it the whatever, yeah.
[18:51] SPEAKER_00: Um, that in itself is gonna really help with with what we've talked about.
[18:56] SPEAKER_00: But then what you can do is you can say, okay, now you've learned one trick with that object.
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: How many different tricks can I teach you with the same object?
[19:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the definition of flexibility, guys.
[19:09] SPEAKER_00: How many different bits of spaghetti can I get you to use despite the situation being the same?
[19:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[19:15] SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, a really easy one that you could all do right now, because I'm sure you've got one somewhere, is a cut empty cardboard box.
[19:22] SPEAKER_00: How many different things can your dog do with a cardboard box?
[19:25] SPEAKER_00: One foot in, two feet in, back feet in, one back foot in, get in, lie down, get in, sit, wander around the cardboard box.
[19:33] SPEAKER_00: Don't interact with the cardboard box and do a sit-down, a stand, a spin at the side of the cardboard box, right?
[19:39] SPEAKER_00: Because that in itself is another bit of spaghetti, yeah, that that we're that we're using here.
[19:44] SPEAKER_00: Um I pick up the cardboard box in my mouth.
[19:47] SPEAKER_00: Can I drag the cardboard box along the floor with my mouth?
[19:50] SPEAKER_00: Whatever, whatever it is, and sometimes your dog gets creative and it's like, oh, there's new ones that are cropping up.
[19:56] SPEAKER_00: When they get really flexible and they've they've realized the goal of the game, you can probably get them to do, they'll be teaching you tricks to do with the cardboard box, right?
[20:05] SPEAKER_00: But the point is, is that what it does is it gets all of those little bits of spaghetti tickled, it grows that flexibility muscle, and it keeps the brain young and adaptable and cognitively flexible, and that in turn really um really prevents and also improves those symptoms that we are all told and gets drilled into us.
[20:30] SPEAKER_00: That's just what old dogs are.
[20:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[20:33] SPEAKER_00: Oh, they've got the incurable illness of age, and therefore, yeah, they will bark at the top of the stairs at 5 pm every day.
[20:42] SPEAKER_00: No, that is a dog that is stressed, that is a dog that is implementing a coping strategy because they've found themselves in a situation, the situation they don't have the skills to navigate.
[20:52] SPEAKER_00: One of those skills is flexibility.
[20:54] SPEAKER_00: Flexibility we can teach them.
[20:56] SPEAKER_00: There are other skills as well that might be causing that.
[20:59] SPEAKER_00: We might be able to talk about those in a future episode.
[21:02] SPEAKER_00: But what I want to do, guys, is get you all really excited about turning that really hard, fragile, brittle, massive three strands of spaghetti into literally a pile of soft cooked spaghetti.
[21:17] SPEAKER_00: And who knew that you'd be hearing that when you tuned into this uh this episode?
[21:22] SPEAKER_00: But I can't stress enough, this is one of the biggest gifts that we can give our dogs, especially as they progress through life, and they don't need to be 14, 15, 16 years old to be classed as senior.
[21:33] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they this can start at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and certainly should be starting at 6, 7, 8, and 9, right?
[21:42] SPEAKER_00: Um, and as I say, it's one of the greatest gifts that we can give them.
[21:46] SPEAKER_00: So, guys, if you've got value, if you'd love me to talk more about this kind of stuff, then definitely head over to Apple Podcast, leave us a review, um, or leave us a review on Spotify or whatever platform you other platform you're listening on.
[21:57] SPEAKER_00: That allows us to then guide the future learning, and we will see you next time.
[22:02] SPEAKER_00: See you next time, guys.

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