How to use the Professor Akira Flashcards

The Professor Akira Flashcards are simple to use for both dog and owner. Start with the beginner’s techniques, before you graduate onto intermediate and then advanced.

 

Beginner’s - teach your dog how to tap a card

1. Choose any card and hold it to your dog’s eye level with the numeral or picture-side facing them.
2. Get your dog’s attention by using their name and a command such as “Have a Look”, then tell the dog to “Tap Card” while you tap the card - being consistent with your command words and actions will make the task easier to learn.
3. Encourage your dog to tap the card while you repeat the words “Tap Card” - you might want to move their paw gently to the card to start with.
4. Reward the dog whenever it taps the card – if you’re giving food as a treat, make it a healthy and a small amount.
5. Repeat as often as necessary - we suggest each training session is around 5-10 minutes at the beginning depending on your dog’s attention span and your patience (little and often seems to work with Akira).
6. Once your dog has got the hang of tapping the card on the ground, you’re now ready to move up to the next level.

Intermediate - teach your do to identify numbers, animals, colours etc

1. Hold a card up to your dog.
2. We suggest starting at number one (1) and teaching numbers chronologically.
3. Get your dog’s attention using their name and the command used previously (for example, “Have a Look”) while tracing the number with your finger.
4. Say the number “two”, and tap the card.
5. Then encourage your dog to tap the card, while you repeat “two” followed by “Tap Card”. Reward the dog when it does this.
6. Keep going, repeating this a number of times.
7. Once your dog has got the hang of this, you can start to add more numbers, teaching each card in turn.
8. You’re ready to move up to the next level.

Advanced - work with a pair of cards

1. Facing your dog, hold up two cards so that you can see the words and the dog can see the numerals.
2. Get your dog’s attention using their name and your command word (for example, “Have a Look”).
3. Ask the dog to choose one of the cards (for example, “Two”).
4. Reward the dog if it put its paw on the correct card; otherwise, keep going until it gets it right.
5. Then move onto a new pair of cards and repeat the game.

What next?

Professor Akira Flashcards also come in sets of animals, colours, objects and counting – so when your dog has mastered one set, you can keep them engaged with something new and when they’ve learnt all that, start mixing the sets up.