Puppy Training Schedule and Duration
The art of puppy training lies in making training fun and rewarding for you and your puppy. Training is not a quick fix for short-term behavior problems. Conversely, it is a lifelong process of learning. It will take time before your puppy learns to assimilate with your lifestyle, schedule and behavior.
Puppies have very small attention spans. A long and rigorous training program can make her feel bored and uneasy. This will result in her becoming disinterested and all your efforts will go waste.
It will not be possible for you to maintain a longer training schedule on a continuous basis. When you adopt a new puppy, your enthusiasm is at peak and you make plans and programs for her.
As time passes, your enthusiasm reduces and slackness may begin to pervade your attitude towards the training program. This slackness will hamper the training program. If you are not able to keep pace with the training program, your puppy may even forget what she has already learned.
It is better to have a realistic approach for puppy training. Plan a training schedule that you or your family members can comfortably maintain. Brief 10-15 minute training sessions three or four times in a day will achieve the desired results. The best solution will be to design a training program in consultation with all your family members and stick to that plan.
To make training fun and interesting, incorporate training in almost all of the daily activities of your puppy. Rather than boring her with long training sessions, train your puppy when she is doing what she loves to do the most. For example, you are getting ready for your office and your puppy is frantically following you from one room to the other.
Rather than getting annoyed by her actions, use this opportunity to reinforce what she has learned. Make her “heel” by you from living room to bedroom and then to bathroom. Make her “sit and stay” while you brush your teeth, “heel” from bathroom to kitchen, “down and stay” while you are brewing coffee, and “go fetch the ball” when you get dressed. Similarly, teach her to “sit” every time you open the door and “sit” before and after walk or play sessions.
Schedule and consistency are necessary for introducing the puppy to living with humans. You need to maintain a fixed schedule for feeding, exercise, training, grooming, playing and sleeping. If you are erratic in your behavior and keep on changing the time for feeding and housebreaking, your puppy has more chances of becoming undisciplined and erratic in her behavior. We will have more on these issues in the forthcoming chapters.