Audio Article
One of the biggest difficulties when bringing a new pup or dog home, is setting training expectations. We all have visions of what our previous dogs were like, and want to see all the good things in our new fur baby immediately. Not in a year or 2 years, but basically as soon as their paws hit the floor. We often don’t even think about the things that our previous dogs might have had trouble with. Just the good things of course, and that’s what we compare our new member of the family to. I would say that this perception is not fair.
When training the new puppy< and setting dog training expectations, we need to continuously check our own expectations as the caretaker. The truth is, a 10 week old puppy is not going to be able to follow as many requests as a trained 2 year old dog will. A new rescue dog, might not have as many skills as one that has been trained for a year. For this reason, it’s a good idea to prioritize what the most relevant and important skills are, and work on those first. For example, house training of course, is the highest priority for most people when their puppy arrives to the home. So this would take the top spot on the list for most new puppy parents. During this process, we need to keep reminding ourselves that the new dog or puppy is new to the environment, and will do fine, as long as we remain consistent, patient, and compassionate.
We also need to be aware, that our new dog or puppy, is not going to get everything we teach, right away as soon as we practice it. They need to be able to practice it many times, and under many conditions, in order to have consistent success. We need, and always will need, to be consistent with everything in order to get the skills to the point where our dogs are successful at least 80% of the time. Being aware of our reaction when they don’t have success, is an indication of how we’re setting our dog training expectations. If we are anxious, then chances are that they might be too high.
Part of the difficulty with setting dog training expectations, is when we compare our dogs to other dogs, or to our previous dogs. We need to remember that our new dog or puppy is an individual, and likely came from a different environment than our previous ones. For example, my first dog was 4 years old, and all trained when we adopted him. He was almost perfect we always say. Of course, we compared our next dogs to him. My second dog was from a stressful environment, and was only 9 weeks old when we got her. She had already been through 4 homes by the time she landed with us. Our third dog, was from a kill shelter in Georgia, and was almost a year old when we got him. Way different beginnings that we need to consider.
They all had challenges, but for some reason we didn’t think about them. We just continued on, and enjoyed everything they had to offer. Times seem to be different now. The average dog owner, is very aware of behaviors, and most of us want our dogs to be happy and well adjusted. The old, dominant, alpha philosophy, is changing, so raising a well adjusted dog, can seem to be more work. With that, comes the tendency to micro focus on everything, to make sure they are the perfect dogs in every situation. This can have a big impact on our dog training expectations.
The most effective methods, focus on setting our training expectations, to meet our dog’s abilities. Which means, we also have to give them credit for what they can do today. It can be a useful tool to occasionally do an inventory on how our dog or puppy has progressed in the last month. For puppies for example, pulling at the dish towel on the stove, biting, trouble being alone, whining at the bathroom door etc., are all puppy things that they need to be able to navigate through, with our guidance.
At the end of the day, we want our dogs to feel loved, have a good disposition, and be well adjusted. We want dogs that don’t jump up, don’t pull when we are walking, can be alone for 4 hours, can be in the car by themselves while we go shopping, don’t bark at everything, and don’t lunge at other dogs during our walks. Stuff like that. Stuff that is all normal dog behavior, but is just not compatible with most of our lives. Owning a dog means, always working with them and continuing to keep setting training expectations, and the criteria for those expectations, to align with their current abilities.
Check out this Great Puppy Training Guide
