Time is so weird. I can spend 5 hours bingeing a Netflix tv show and it feel like I’ve only sat down for 10 minutes. Or I can spend 2 minutes training my dog and it feel like 10 hours!!
It’s so easy to think you are spending more time on training your dog than you actually are.
Especially at that critical puppy stage where you are constantly introducing new cues, actions and behaviours.
I’m so guilty of doing this myself. I often think I have done much more training in an area than I actually have. And it’s very easy when living in a multiple person family to assume that someone else is picking up the slack.
When you are not seeing progress with your pup or adult dog in a new area, try writing it down and seeing how many repetitions and how much time you have spent actually working on this.
To this day, the results always shock me. Often I think I have spent hours on a particular area of my dogs training to look back at my training diary and see it was only 10 minutes over the course of a week!!!
This is one of the first things I recommend to clients who aren’t seeing the progress they were hoping for- are you actually spending as much time as you think helping your dog learn the new skill?
When training any new skill, keep the repetitions short and sweet, but spread them out throughout the day. Little and often is key. It won’t tire your puppy to the point of boredom, and it will keep you engaged and focused for a short time.
So this week, I want to challenge you to write down how much time you are spending with your dog doing training. Tag me in your training diaries guys. I can’t wait to see