Straight from the dog’s mouth - Nutty’s advice
Hi my name is Nutty the Dachshund and I’m here to tell you how it is from the dog’s perspective so you know how best to help us hounds.
If you are training puppies you have to teach very short sessions and train often because puppy brains can’t stand too much learning all at once.
Pups learn better if you teach things for a few minutes at a time because that way they don’t get bored and start to mess around, jumping, yapping, playing – you know the way puppies do.
Same for toilet training take puppies out often especially when they have just woken up, after eating and playtime and especially if you see them sniffing around on the floor – even if they have just been out and you think they don’t need out again – they probably do.
When you put a collar and leash on a puppy for the first time don’t be surprised if he tries to bite it, because it will feel very strange and maybe even frightening to some pups who have never even seen a collar or a leash before so please be patient.
If you are training us – ahem – more mature doggies remember we also like to enjoy ourselves so give us the fun stuff too.
There are plenty of great books and videos out there on how to train dogs in interesting and fun ways and if you have a dog who has problems with some aspect of training then it’s okay to ask for guidance because there are many great trainers around who can help if you find things difficult.
Also, and this one is very important, keep training fun, no one learns when they are bored or if they find the lessons too difficult and the same is true for us doggies so if training is fun with games and lots of yummy treats as rewards we will enjoy training and when we enjoy training we learn much faster... just like humans really!