One of the biggest difficulties for us when we adopted our rescue puppy was setting training expectations. We had visions of what our previous dogs were like and wanted to see all the good things in our new fur baby. … Now. Not when she is 2 years old but basically as soon as her paws hit the floor. We were not even thinking about the things that our previous dogs had troubles with. Just the good things of course, and that is what we were comparing Rylee to. I would say that wasn’t fair at all. We did give her a chance though. 🙂
Setting Training Expectations
When training Rylee, we had to continuously check our expectations. The truth is, a 14 week old puppy is likely not going to be able to do as many commands as a 2 year old dog will. We had to prioritize what was needed and work on those skills first. For example house training was of course the highest priority when she came home with us. During this process we needed to keep reminding ourselves that she was just a puppy and she was doing fine.
We also needed to be aware that Rylee was not going to get everything right away once we taught it to her. She needed to be able to practice it many times under many conditions in order to have consistent success. We needed and still need to be consistent with everything in order to get her skills to the point where she would be successful at least 90% of the time. Our reaction sometimes when she does not have success is an indication that we are setting training expectations are too high.
Part of the difficulty with expectations is when we are comparing her to other dogs or to our previous dogs. We need to remember that she is also an individual and came from a different environment than our previous ones. Our 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. Our second dog was from a bit of a stressful environment and was only 9 weeks old when we got her. She had already been through 4 homes by then. Our third dog was from a kill shelter and was almost a year old when we got him.
They all had challenges but for some reason we didn’t think about any of them. We just continued on with them and enjoyed them through everything. And now, Rylee is the first dog that came into the house without any other animals already here. So of course we are super focused on her and her development. We looked at things a lot lighter with our other dogs. We now have a tendency to micro focus on everything.
We have to try to always work on setting training expectations to meet Rylee’s abilities. With that, we have to give her credit for her current abilities. We occasionally do an inventory of the puppy things that she was doing that we didn’t want her to do. Pulling at the dish towel on the stove, biting, trouble being alone, whining at the bathroom door etc. All puppy things that she needed to be able to learn though with our guidance, patience and compassion.
At the end of the day, we want her to be a loved dog with a good disposition. One that doesn’t jump up, doesn’t pull when we are walking, can be alone for 4 hours, can be in the car by herself while we go shopping, doesn’t bark at everything, doesn’t lunge at other dogs. Stuff like that. Stuff that most dog parents want. And I have to say we have accomplished most of it. We are always working with her though and need to continue to keep setting training expectations that align with her abilities.
Check out this Great Puppy Training Guide