No time for training?
Feel like you’re not sure how often to train, for how long, or just that you’ve got no time for training? Yes, training needs to be frequent, as repetitions build success, but keeping it short and sweet can make it easier to plan, and won’t challenge your dog’s attention span. It’ll probably keep them wanting more. When thinking about finding more training time, it’s worth remembering that the way you go about every interaction with your pup is in fact ‘training’. Secondly, it can help to think about the moments in your day where you could easily combine your own activities with a few moments of dog training.
Making every moment count
Whether we think we’re training or not, our dogs are learning all the time. They’re learning what works for them. When they do certain things, what happens? Are these outcomes good or bad. Dogs will learn to repeat behaviours that pay off, those that make them feel more comfortable, and provide positive emotions. Also, whether they realise it or not, everyone in the family is training. So consistency is key. It’s important that everyone’s following the same recipe.
Making your routine really useful
Your daily routine may seem simple, but there’s so much we expect our dogs to just ‘know’. For example, with the daily routine of leaving the house, you probably want calm behaviour to make these interactions simpler and safer. So you might come up with a recipe where you wait for three seconds of calm, before you cue ‘let’s go’ and leave through the front door and do the same at the gate. Whether you always do these things, and whether everyone in the family does them too, will impact how quickly your dog learns. In general, if you want to create a good habit, always do things the same way. One thing always follows another. [Conversely, if you want to avoid a challenging habit, keep things more random. When you put your dog’s harness on, you may decide to give them a chew on their mat so that getting the harness on doesn’t equally ‘WALKIES’ and set up crazy energy. Sometimes, you could even put the harness on at a random time when you’re not going for a walk.]
Working on short bursts of skills training can be used to build important cues like ‘leave it’. You can effectively train it up at home before you’re ready to try it outside in the real world. Don’t forget that play with your dog builds your bond (which makes all training easier) and can also be used to teach life skills. A three minute play session has numerous benefits including helping you to take a break - so that's great for your mental health too.
Helpful habits
In addition to guiding and encouraging good choices throughout the day, there are times that we need to do a little proactive practice. Think ‘micro-training sessions’ i.e. multiple super short sessions working on specific skills for a few minutes here and there. When setting up a habit, science tells us that it helps to a) hook it into something you already do, and b) to keep it quick and easy.
Making the most of good gaps
Look for natural breaks in your day as well as ‘transitions times’. These work well because they’re generally quite regular. Examples of natural breaks include toilet breaks and tea breaks. Transition times are things like after a shower, arriving home, getting changed after work, or closing the curtains and switching on the TV.
It can be a good idea to keep a few treats or a portion of kibble from your dog’s daily allowance in a relevant location, for example at the fruit bowl or next to the coffee machine if that’s more your thing.
Share a banana together, reward every few bites with a pea-sized piece for your pup while they remain calm next to you.
Coffee break recalls, where you practise calling your dog from another room and reward with something amazing or a great game of tug (put your coffee down first).
Low-down wiggly body rubs just as you get home, followed by rolling some biscuits away from you for your dog to chase, so your pup’s not jumping up while you do your getting home routine of coat off, kettle on etc. By the time you’re ready to give them a proper cuddle they’ll have come down from crazy mode.
[Of course there are also other times when you’re doing one thing, and you want your dog to be doing another. E.g. Train peace at meal times by serving them a 20 course meal - numerous teeny tiny biscuits for settling on a mat while you eat.]
When you’ve got more time
You can magically find more training time by having a daily routine where you’re conscious of what you’re really teaching, together with micro training sessions to work on different life skills. Come the weekend, you can take your skills on the road. Testing out your training in more novel locations will help your dog to understand that the game stays the same no matter where you play.