Five-Alive's been home for four or five weeks now.
And we've been documenting his training as you guys see,
we really like posting all these videos.
But we've been reading a lot of the comments and something that we've been
noticing by reading the comments is that there is something pretty major that
you guys are missing with puppy training.
We are several videos into this puppy series,
but if this is your first time here, Kayl, why don't you bring 'em up to speed?
This is our new puppy vlog. Now as a dog trainer, for more than 20 years,
I have raised and trained a lot of dogs already in this series.
I'm gonna share with you some tips and tricks that I've learned along the way.
And I bet many of them you've never heard of I'm Kayl McCann.
This is eight-week-old mixed breed puppy, Five-Alive.
Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Here in our training facility,
we've helped more than a hundred thousand dog owners to overcome the same dog
training challenges that you have.
So if this is your first time on the channel and you're currently training a
puppy,
make sure you hit that subscribe button so that we can help you to have a well
behaved four-legged family member. How.
Much time would you say you spend every day actually training Five-Alive?
If I was to take all of the training.
Sessions, all of the.
Training session and put them together. Yeah.
I would say anywhere from like 20 minutes to 40 minutes, depending on the day.
Absolutely. In a day. And I think this is the big.
Thing, like actual training, totally. Of actual training. Yeah.
Only about that much. This.
Is the thing that people don't quite understand is,
is they're so focused on the training aspect, their puppy,
but they have no idea what the rest of the day might look like.
And I think we get a lot of questions and comments on our channel,
especially in things like our live-streams. Like how do I fix this problem?
And they think puppy owners, it's.
Never usually a training issue. Exactly. It's, it's always a management issue.
Right? So these are the two elements that we want to talk to you about today.
Supervision and management.
These are things that are going to really help you eliminate some of these puppy
training challenges that you have now.
What are some of the management tools that we use?
What are some of the things that we, and again, this is a small part management,
but what are some of the tools we use every day with a Five-Alive? And I mean,
he's a smart dog. Like he is a, he's the smartest,
what a great little student he is, but there's even with his great performance,
you know, in his great his level of success.
We still use some things to make sure that he can't make big.
Mistakes. Yeah. The big ones are,
we utilize a crate on a regular basis when we can't interact with him or watch
him supervise him. He always has a little house leash on of some sort.
Although I will tell you,
I haven't used it in a while because his training is getting a lot better,
but it's still there just in case baby gates so that he doesn't have free access
to the whole house. We keep him his space limited. So again,
it's easier to manage him that way.
I would say those and then giving him something to do, like giving him a job,
even if that's just like having a toy to play with or whatever it might be,
so I would say those are like the four big ones.
Yeah.
In terms of management tools and people might not think of a management tool
being like a chew bone. Yeah. You know, a nylon bone or something for a puppy.
Yeah. When we.
Utilize that, something like that a lot.
Absolutely. the, the rest of the time we're talking about,
if he's not in his crate, he's not being managed,
we're talking about supervision.
And this is where I think a lot of people struggle when it comes to something
like house training or chewing. Yeah.
Like this is where people drop the ball a little bit. Yeah. As puppy owners.
And let's talk about,
let's talk about house training problems that people often have. Yeah.
Things that people say to you like, oh, I can't stop my puppy from this thing.
Yeah. What do you, how do you talk about.
Well often they say I can't stop my puppy from, you know,
sneaking away and having an accident. Or they'll say I had my puppy outside,
but then my puppy came in and then had an accident right then and there.
Or he's great when I'm with him, but when he is not with me,
that's when he is having an accident. Absolutely. And all,
there's more things that happen,
but all three of those things have to do with lack of management, because,
you know,
if the dog is having an opportunity to go to the bathroom without you seeing
them or going to the bathroom in the house having a potty accident
when you're not watching yep.
Or in a different room that tells you that the supervision's not there, that,
that, there's no way that,
that would've happened with him because he's never been in another room without
us paying attention. He's always management or the, like the outside one,
if they're going outside and then they're coming in and having an accident.
Well,
they're probably not being managed well outside totally means that they come
back in and now they still have to go to the.
Bathroom. Well,
and I think what's really important for you to understand as a new puppy owner,
is that switching from supervision to management to training happens
really quickly. Yeah.
A great example of that is when we were teaching him to indicate to go outside.
In fact, he was initially trained from the breeder to pee on a pad. And,
and that's the video that we're gonna talk about in, in the near future,
like how to get off puppy pads.
But when we were teaching him to indicate to us that he needed to go outside,
were managing him appropriately, making sure he couldn't get away from us. Yeah.
We were supervising him so that we could tell when he had to go out.
And the moment that it switched from supervision to training was when he
indicated to the door. Now in our brains, we've been supervising,
we marked the moment. Oh, good. Do you need to go outside? The training starts,
we take him outside. We praise him. Yeah. For, you know, going pee outside.
And then we bring him back in once we're back inside, we're shifting gears.
I think this is probably what people don't understand is like,
you're always in one of three modes. Yeah.
You're either currently training this puppy. And for us,
this happens 30 to 40 minutes a day and.
Split up, not continuously.
Absolutely.
In like.
Depends on 10 minute training sessions, something like that.
Or you are managing your puppy.
Here's an interesting example of good management.
When you take the puppy out for a pee, you practice good management.
What does that look like for the average puppy owner?
Yeah. So for me, I want him to learn to, you know,
not run out a door if it was ever left open, for example,
or jump on the people that, or walking by the street or whatever it might be.
And as a puppy, he doesn't have a recall yet.
He doesn't have a lot of those skills.
So I have to put some management things into play to keep him safe,
but also to not teach him really bad habits. And then in a few months say, oh,
you're not allowed to do that anymore. Even though you've been doing that for,
for whatever, how many months. So for him going outside looks a lot like,
you know, sitting at the door. And initially when we first started,
when I first came home,
that would be me putting some food on his nose and luring him into a sit,
rewarding him a bunch of times when I would put my boot and my coat on my boot,
only one boot my boots and coat on.
And then I would take him outside sometimes because he's a puppy and he would do
a lot of pulling.
I would carry him out to the grass sometimes instead of let him rehearse,
pulling on the leash. When he was finished,
I would have some treats ready and I would practice calling his name.
We'd go back in the door and again, and make him wait at the,
so all of these steps were putting in place because we have to do that five or
six times a day, for X amount of weeks so far.
I have a 14 week old puppy that he automatically sits when I go to put my shoes
on. He automatically sits before I open the door because he's,
that's all he's ever known. Yeah.
So now we're sort of putting a little bit of a structure into place.
So that as he gets older, he's got those things already down pat,
and it doesn't really matter about the age. Literally,
if you had a 10 month old dog, you could start this right now.
It would just take a little bit longer time. But that's the management.
I think people think I've got my bait bag on, I've got my leash on.
I'm just gonna do my training now. And then for the rest of the time,
they sort of allow the puppy to act like a hooligan. And that's not really what,
what you wanna do. You wanna try and make sure I'm not training him. I,
I am training him in that moment, but I, I'm not setting out to say,
I'm gonna train him for 10 minutes.
I'm literally just taking him out for a pee and bringing him back in.
But it's not just taking him up for a pee and bringing him back in there's
there's moments of training in there. There's moments of training.
I'm managing him. I'm making him teaching him to be respectful.
I'm teaching him that he needs to listen to me.
And I'm making it fun along the way.
And it does not take any extra time where the whole X
amount of time plays in. You know, I do that multiple times a day.
It's all training, but it doesn't take any extra time.
It makes a massive difference. Or you are supervising the puppy.
And that means that, you know, maybe they're gonna,
they have a chance to make some mistakes. Yeah. Which is good.
You want to make a few mistakes here and there because you wanna be able to
catch 'em in the act of it so that you can show them the rules of the house.
But if those mistakes are being made over and over and over,
he just thinks I'm gonna go through my whole trick repertoire right now.
If they get a lot of opportunity to make those mistakes,
without getting any feedback about them,
and then those things are being repeated.
That's when you're really into trouble because dogs don't do anything on
purpose. They do it because they don't know any better. And, you know,
some sometimes going to the bathroom and the house feels really good.
If you have to go to the bathroom and no,
one's there to say that it's not okay or chewing apart something,
that's a fun thing for them to do, unless somebody's there to say, Hey,
you shouldn't do that. So, you know, mistakes are good.
As long as they are being captured and the dogs being trained.
And that those mistakes are happening a very small amount in comparison to the
good choices that they make.
And if you're around and you're supervising and you're managing well,
there's so many times where I've like said to you, can you believe that puppy,
that what choice that puppy just made? And we're like,
we're on top of it all of the time reinforcing him. So he just starts to think,
oh,
they really like when I lie on the bed or they really like when I grab a bone
and I, you know,
go over here and I chew on it because we always make a big deal of those things
because we're always managing him well.
Right. Well, that's a really important point to make,
because when we're talking about supervision,
we're not just talking about waiting for the puppy to make bad choices.
We're talking about marking the great things.
When he goes and eyes down on a bed, you know, when he goes,
pops himself into his crate, or when he makes a good choice,
the supervision allows us to mark those moments.
The management aspect is Kayl taking a little bone out of her pocket.
I know,
cause right now I'm managing him because he's about to scratch in the bed and be
crazy because he's a 14 week old puppy who is not fully trained yet.
We're talking to camera. So I'm whip.
I got treats in this pocket and I have a chew bone in this pocket. I'm managing.
Do you feel like you have a puppy that's super hyper,
constantly full of energy and you can never tire them out.
Make sure you check out this card right there.
And if you'd like to get a training plan, that's specific to you and your puppy,
and you want the help of a McCann Dogs instructor,
make sure you check out the link in the description below to our Puppy
Essentials program. On that note I'm Ken, this is Five-Alive, happy training.