Teaching the dog to help out in the kitchen (or elsewhere where you have drawers for that matter)
I start with just pulling out 1 drawer in the nosehight of the dog and then I start to gentle point on the drawer or use a nosetarget
if the dog is familiar with that. When the dogs nose toutches the drawer click or praise. When the dog knows that and starts to put it’s nose towards the drawer or target increase the demands so that the dog must push on the drawer. I find the best way is to just open the drawer max 1 inch so that when the dog start to push it it will slide and close at once. A drawer that slides shut do make a small sound and take advantage of that for the further training. When the dogs knows to close the drawer that is only opened an inch – open the drawer more and that will lead to the dog having to push the drawer several times (or as with my dogs harder 😉 but they hear the sound when the drawer closes. Then move on further to open several drawers at the same time.
If you want the dog to close them in a certain order think about that and train that from the start – For me the trick is done when all drawers is closed and I don’t care about what order they are closed in. This can also be applied to the cupboard doors, dishwasher and refrigerator if wanted.
A sidenote, train this AFTER you have cooked dinner and not just before – or you might get an alert dog that want to close the drawers as sone as you open them almost before you even have picked up what you want 🙂
You can then move on and open serveral drawers and cupboards at the same time and ask the dog to close them.
I do help out and guide the dog during the training.