The “Broadway Musical” Training Game!

When I was three years old, the musical My Fair Lady, became a Broadway hit. I have so many wonderful memories of that soundtrack because my little toddler brain soaked up the music and made associations to events in my life at the time. 

In particular, the song “On the street where you live”, seemed to play in my head whenever my mom and I walked past the one house in the neighborhood with the beautiful lilacs growing behind the tall wrought iron fence. 

The line, “Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?” tied that moment forever to that place and time where even today, I’m transported back to where I can still smell the fragrant lilacs.

Many years later, the movie version came out, and my parents took us kids to see this classic.

One of the things that struck me as silly, not just about this film, but all musicals, is that the characters can be having a conversation and suddenly burst out in a song, followed by returning to whatever they were doing before they were abducted by aliens.

Of course, by now you’re used to me making this about dog training, so yes, I shall digress…

Many dog owners are accustomed to training their dogs by the book. In other words, they follow a recipe and in the end, have a trained dog or just give up because it’s too much effort to take time out of their busy lives to schedule training time. Knowing this, I’m always looking for new ways to make training fun vs having my clients schedule one more thing on their to-do list.

Well as the saying goes, “Practice what you preach”, and that’s when I came up with the “Broadway Musical” training game!

I’m a big believer in having a treat pouch (“wallet”) full of delicious treats (“currency”), when I take the dogs out for a walk, because you never know when you’ll see a good behavior to “buy”. However, when indoors, I want to be spontaneous, so I stash a few treats in my pocket.

And just like that, I suddenly, squeal, “Puppies, COME”, while taking off running, waving my hands and looking totally ridiculous, according to the dogs. Then, as soon as they catch me, I reach into my pocket for a few delicious treats and then resume whatever I was doing, just like a performer in a musical.

The best part of this, or other foundation cues, is that your dog will quickly learn that you are a source of fun entertainment because, you just might erupt into a song and dance number, even on a walk!  Never mind what the neighbors are thinking because you’ll be having way too much fun to care.

Sure, you could just go back to that old boring, predictable training session or get your pups engaged the super fun “Broadway Musical” training game!

HAPPY TRAINING & ENLIGHTENMENT!

© Fran Berry CPDT-KA, UW-AAB all rights reserved 2026