We had a really great question.
Come in the other day from one of our viewers and she had asked,
how long should you be training your puppy each session?
And what indicators should you look for to let you know that they've had enough
now reading this question, something immediately jumped out at me.
And I think it's something that a lot of new puppy owners don't really know
about.
A lot of people don't realize that training your puppy too long can actually
have a pretty negative effect on your training session. So in today's video,
I'm going to give you a game plan that's going to ensure that your training
sessions are effective and fun every single time. I'm Kayl McCann.
Welcome back to McCann Dogs. On
our YouTube channel.
We publish videos every single week to help you to have a puppy that loves to
listen. So if you want your puppy to love.
To listen to you, you need to keep them motivated. This.
Is why you need to stop thinking about your training sessions in terms of length
of time.
Because it's more complicated than that,
but I'm going to make it easy for you to understand. First,
we need to consider a few things that could influence your training session.
There actually isn't a specific.
Length of time that you should be training your puppy on in each training
session, because it actually depends on a few things.
It sometimes can be very puppy specific and then also it has to do with what
you're training. So for example,
if you're training on something that requires a lot of activity from your dog,
a lot of action, you might find that they get tired out more quickly.
So those training sessions should be shorter.
You could also find that you're working on something more brainy that requires
problem solving and a little bit more mental focus. Those.
Sessions you might be able to squeeze out for a little bit longer.
Another factor could.
Be the motivator that you're using.
What type of reward are you training your puppy with? Are you using food?
Are you using a toy? Um,
and it isn't specific as to which one will allow you to have a longer training
session. It really just depends on your puppy. Some puppies really like toys,
some puppies really like food. So,
play around with a few different things and see if there's one motivator or one
reward style over the other that allows you to get more out of your training
session. Now,
another huge element that people often forget about is the environment in which
you're training your puppy in. So are you training outside or inside?
How many distractions are around that can really impact how long your puppy can
focus for now?
Obviously if you're practicing in a really quiet place with not much going on,
you might be able to have a longer training session, but if you're outside,
there's lots of distractions going on.
You may need to just work for a short period of time so that you can get some
great success in and get out of there quickly before your dog starts to lose
focus.
Now, is this a new skill for your puppy? New skills require.
A lot of brain power,
a lot more than things that your puppy is already familiar with.
So if you are working on something new,
make sure you keep those training sessions a lot shorter.
Before we talk about the game plan as to what you should do to get the most out
of your training sessions.
We need to talk about some of the signs that you might notice from your puppy
that tells you that you've pushed things too far.
So if you're having a great training session with your puppy,
things seem like they're going really well.
All of a sudden your puppy seems to be really disengaged.
Maybe they start sniffing a lot or their response to your commands or your
signals start to get really slow. Maybe they randomly have to scratch,
or they're trying to wander away.
These are all signs that your puppy just isn't as interested anymore.
And it could be simply that you've just trained a little bit too long.
So you need to be really aware of these things. Now,
in order to get more out of your training session,
we need to talk about what you can do differently to make the most out of your
time.
It's really important with puppies that you keep things short and sweet puppies
have a very small attention span.
So they actually can't stay focused for really long periods of time to begin
with. So rather than setting a long, you know,
an hour or something like that throughout the day,
try to get in short training sessions multiple times throughout the day.
And one of the easiest ways to do this is to incorporate your training sessions
into things that you're already doing with your puppy. So for example,
with our most recent puppy Euchre,
I tried to utilize times when I had a few minutes to focus on,
or like when I was making my tea in the morning,
that's where I might practice some, you know, basic behaviors,
like sit down response to name those types of things.
Every time I took her out for a quick pee, I would practice, you know,
a little recall or getting her to turn away from distraction.
So I was already going out.
I was already spending that time with her and I was using the opportunity to get
a little great, a great training session in there, short, sweet,
and then move on to something else.
The other thing to consider is what you're working on.
So if you're trying to work on something, that's a bit more challenging,
you have a puppy that does get, um, easily distracted or loses focus,
start with something that they're good at.
Start with something that they like doing, just to kind of get them in the mood,
get them excited,
get them a lot of the rewards and then go to something a little bit more
challenging. And this is especially important. If you're training something,
that's going to take multiple training sessions to do, you know,
if I train my puppy to do something and I make it through three or four
progressions and my puppy is doing great. The next time that I train,
I'm not necessarily going to start with where I left off. In fact,
I'm going to start a few progressions earlier to again, build that motivation,
get the puppy,
doing something correctly so that they feel better about what they're doing.
And then start to build more challenge from there.
We talked about environment earlier.
So if I'm going to be practicing in a really distracting environment,
I'm not going to practice the hard stuff. At first,
I'm going to start off with really easy things, easy, like sit down,
spin in a circle. Things that don't require a lot of brain power from my puppy.
So I'm not throwing too many challenges at my puppy at once.
And if I want to work the harder stuff again,
I'm going to work for a short period of time, but I might try,
try to choose to do that in a very low distracting environment and then work my
way up from there. If you're trying to decide how long to train your puppy,
you maybe can consider your puppy's energy level as well.
You may have noticed that there's times throughout the day where your puppy is
really energetic and wild and crazy.
And maybe when you train your puppy during those times,
you train them a little longer,
or maybe there's times when your puppy is a little bit more sleepy and tired,
and it's probably a better idea.
They keep those training sessions a lot shorter.
You should also consider your energy level when it comes time to decide how long
you're training for.
So if you've just come home from a long day at work and you're feeling
exhausted,
that might not be a time to do this big lengthy training session or work on
something complex instead of just keep it fast and easy. Remember, this is all.
About motivation. You will always want to.
End with a win.
And this might mean that you might have to switch to something completely
different than what you're currently currently working on. You know,
there could be times when you're training your puppy and you start to notice
some of those things that we talked about, they start to sniff,
they start to get a little disengaged.
And that's your clue that you need to change things quickly to something that
your puppy is going to be successful at.
It might be something super simple like sitting or looking at you or defaulting
to their favorite trick, but whatever it is,
you need to finish with your dog motivated to work for you because at the end of
the day, that's what we're trying to create.
That also means that the next time you head out with your puppy,
they're going to remember that the last time you did that training session,
really great things happened.
Now that you know how long to train your puppy for,
you need to know what to teach them.
Click the card right here to see our puppy training schedule by age. Now,
if you'd like her professional instructors,
to answer your questions and give you daily feedback on your puppy training,
check out our Puppy Essentials online course,
the link for that is in the description below on that note, I'm Kayl.
Happy Training.