Tell me, if this sounds familiar,
your puppy training experience has had its ups and downs.
Some days you felt like you were winning others made you question whether or not
it was a good idea to even get a puppy. But after everything was said and done,
you felt like your adorable puppy was starting to learn.
You started seeing your dog sitting when you asked them to sit,
they were coming when you called them.
And it almost seemed like they loved listening to you. And then it happened,
even though they know their name, they just weren't responding anymore.
Even though they knew not to pee in the house, they started doing it again.
Even though your puppy was an angel outside, when you were on walks. Now,
it seems like you're walking a little Tasmanian devil.
They're just not interested in you anymore.
And it seems like they're pushing every single boundary just to see how you'll
respond. Now, some of this may be true,
but there's a couple things that you need to know about.
There are two important developmental thresholds in your dog's life.
The first one is around the four-month mark. When you start to think about it,
it should come as no surprise.
I guess that your puppy's starting to act a little bit differently before four
months you are or should be the center of your puppy's world.
You're spending lots of time with them.
You're focused on helping them to avoid making mistakes and you know that
they're going to need to be supervised. Otherwise,
your puppy's gonna get into all kinds of trouble, even in a quiet, prepared,
and safe environment.
But the reality is they haven't ever really been faced with any real-world
distractions. You've been kind of controlling the world around them.
And this is a really important part of that puppy training phase. This is a time
with your puppy that allows you to pattern the right behaviors,
and it allows you to teach them to respond to their name so that every single
time they respond, they're 100% successful with their training.
As your puppy enters this first developmental period.
I really want you to understand that now that you're able to go out and do more
with them, they might not be ready for a bunch of new challenges.
Your puppy might know to respond to their name.
When you're in a quiet environment, they might know to park their butt.
When you say sit, but when you're out in,
in the real world with all these new sites and smells and things that are around
to, to, to take their focus and attention off of you,
you're gonna have to take a few steps back in your training.
If you change the location of your training,
you need to make it easier for your puppy to be successful. And for most
puppies,
the 16-week mark is an exciting time because they start to have access to more
interesting environments.
Now notice that I didn't say they start to have more freedom.
I'm gonna get back to that in just a minute.
The second developmental threshold and the one that most people complain about
for dogs is around the seven month old mark.
And this is commonly referred to as the teenage phase.
And this is the one that most people really struggle with for some reason.
At seven months, your dog is likely a little bit bigger.
They're a little bit stronger than they were before. And at this point,
you aren't really focused on training anymore.
You feel like you've been through most of that.
You've seen them do the things that you want them to do.
And they're pretty good at most of those things.
They're pretty good at listening most of the time,
but there's often one problem behavior that really stands.
Out. Maybe it's barking or jumping. Maybe it's pulling on-leash, uh, maybe it's,
uh,
chewing on something in your home or could even be something like they started
having accidents in your home again.
Now I want you to avoid using the excuse that it's just the teenage phase.
When it comes to solving your training problems, you have two options.
You can either make excuses or you can make changes.
So let's talk about the changes that you're going to need to make.
You probably had pretty high expectations at the beginning.
You probably had a lot more control at the beginning.
Your puppy always had a leash or a house line or something on so that you knew
what to do when they didn't respond. But now your dog's seven months old.
It's important to understand it's important for them to understand that the come
command doesn't just mean, come back to me when I'm in the backyard,
it means the same thing everywhere. You can't let your dog learn that it's okay
to ignore you sometimes. And this is where a lot of people really struggle.
If you feel like you're struggling with skills like listening,
you need to make the right decision to train.
That means that your dog is back on a leash or back on a long line so that you
have a plan. You, you have some,
some way of following through when they don't respond.
And it's okay if they don't respond. Because at this point,
you're ready to turn this into a training moment.
Your dog's quickly gonna learn that there are times when they must listen,
but you can't let them think that they only have to listen when they want to.
This is so, so common for people that say, ah, he just stopped listening. Well,
maybe that's because they have allowed their dog out in the backyard and they've
called them over and over and over again,
without thinking that this is a training moment,
this is a time when I need to get out there and show them what it means. And
with your dog, learning some of these bad habits,
they're learning that that is the response.
They don't have to come when they're called.
It's really important that at this stage, especially you're focused on training.
Dog training is a dynamic process.
And a lot of the skills you've taught your puppy are perishable skills.
So if you aren't acknowledging the good responses once in a while,
your dog may start to see them as less valuable and whether they respond or not
to them.
So if you call your dog's name in a busy environment and they turn back to you
and happily come running back, what are you doing?
Randomly rewarding your dog at this stage in their life is a great way to remind
them to put in that little bit of extra effort.
When's the last time that you rewarded your dog for something great? I,
I don't mean just giving them a treat maybe for your dog. It's, uh, a toy.
Maybe it's a game of tug of war. Maybe it's a game of fetch.
Maybe it's just pet and praise, or maybe it is their favorite food reward.
But whatever that thing is,
the simple fact that you're acknowledging the effort means that you're more
likely to get it again. And if there's some skill that your dog is, uh,
inconsistent at during this stage of their life,
set up the training experience and reward the good stuff more often.
Puppy owners often gauge their success or failure depending on their
dog's age. You know, can they sit by this age?
Have they stopped having accidents by this age?
But just because your dog is now seven or eight months old doesn't mean that
they can't have potty training issues that come up. Or.
Jumping problems that, uh, you know, come out of the blue.
What's really important at this point is what you do about it.
I mentioned the word freedom earlier.
And when it comes to your dog's training problems,
it's important for you to understand that freedom is earned.
Regardless of your dog's age,
if they're sneaking away every once in a while to pee in the living room,
then you need to manage them better.
They can't be given the freedom to be in that location unsupervised.
Now you might think,
and I sometimes hear people say that their dog's peeing in the carp on the
carpet to be defiant,
or that they've started chewing on things in your home because they're somehow
mad at you. But that couldn't be farther from the truth.
The reality is that because of a lack of information,
they've discovered that it feels good to pee indoors,
or they've discovered that your gym shoes taste good. Who knows why.
In the absence of good information and because it feels good,
they think that that is the right choice. So to avoid your dog,
being able to rehearse some of these unwanted things,
you're going to wanna start scaling back some of those freedoms.
Using your crate more often will keep your dog out of trouble using things like
baby gates to restrict your dog's access to places where they can get into
trouble. It doesn't really matter how old they are,
or the fact that they never used to chew on your shoes.
You need to focus on the stage that they're in right now.
And that stage is the learning stage. If they're not listening,
when they're outside, then it's time to use your leash or a long line.
If they started to jump up on people,
then it's time to use a leash or have your, uh,
dog drag a house line so that you can train through this stuff. This is likely
the most important time to give your dog great information.
You need to show them exactly what you're going to expect for the next
five, 10, maybe 15 years with them.
And you wanna be a good coach for your adolescent dog.
The best way to do that is to understand the skills that they're going to need a
little bit of extra practice in and to set them up so that you can train through
these problems. Socialization is a popular topic when it comes to dog training.
And if you are struggling to help your dog,
see you as someone who's worth listening to,
you need to be making great choices with their socialization.
We recently talked to instructor Meg about her new puppy,
and she discussed some of the things that her puppy found really valuable during
the teenage phase.
And she recognized that she'd made a couple of mistakes when Meg realized what
those mistakes were.
She quickly made a couple of changes to get her training back on track now so
that you don't make those same mistakes.
I want you to watch this video right here.
If you're looking for some personalized support,
that's specific to you and your dog training needs,
and you want some help from me and the McCann Dog team of instructors,
click the link in the description below to our life skills program.
On that note, I'm Ken happy training.