So, you went to puppy school and your pup aced it, top of the class but now a few weeks later, it’s like you never went. All that money and time wasted!!

 

As professional dog trainers, it’s devastating to see training fail. Luckily it doesn’t happen very often. Over the years, we have looked at the reasons why dog training fails. Here’s our top three.

 

1. Owners not doing their bit.

You go to puppy class or have a trainer visit you for an hour a week at home. Either way, they leave you with ‘homework’. Exercises for you to practice during the week with your dog. Do them, don’t do them. It’s your money, but if you don’t do them, next week’s lesson won’t be able to progress any further as you will be in the same place as last week. Also, it doesn’t matter what you say, we know you haven’t been practicing. Have you had a PT instructor at a gym before? They normally want 2 or 3 sessions a week out of you plus their 1-hour session. Lie all you want but they know if you haven’t been training.

 

2. Failure to generalise.

We see this all the time with puppy school graduates.

‘What happens at puppy school, stays at puppy school’.

When a pup learns to loose lead walk in a circle in a church hall, that’s what they have learned to do. If you take your pup shopping or to a park, unless you have a natural calm walker (some are) then your pup won’t be able to manage it. Dogs are contextual learners. They learn in the context they are in. They really struggle to transfer their learning to a different context. In the new context we have to start from the beginning. Once this context is mastered, go again in a new context. Each time, the training will get a bit easier and will take less time. Eventually the dog will be able to perform the behaviour in any context and will be ‘fluent’ in that behaviour.

 

3. Going too quickly

Most dog training exercises go in steps. You achieve a level, then move onto the next, then the next, again and again until you reach the final target. A very common mistake owners make is to get over enthusiastic.  Here’s a mantra for you which no dog trainer will disagree with:

‘If you think you are going at the right speed, you’re wrong. Slow down!’

If you want to achieve a goal quicker, do more sessions. Instead on 1 five minute session a day, go for 2. Instead of training 3 times a week, try 6 times, but keep the speed of moving through content slow.

 

We offer dog training in Warrington, Dog Training in Cheshire, Dog Training in Manchester