I hear it all the time…”I don’t have time to train my dog.” “I’m too busy” “There aren’t enough hours in the day.”
There is this myth that you need a ton of time each day to get your dog to listen to you. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
I ask most of my students to do maybe 3 sessions of training that last about 5 minutes long per day. Can you spare 15 minutes in a day…broken up…to have a dog that no longer causes you stress?
Can you believe it? I don’t even ask for 15 minutes straight. Do you know why?
There are a couple of reasons:
A dog’s attention span is short. Drilling behaviors over and over or asking for duration in a behavior while the dog is still learning sets everyone up for failure.
I always want you to end on success. If the dog fails time and time again, not only does the dog get discouraged, but so do you. Now you’re getting frustrated and that will make you less likely to practice things with your dog and you will never see the results I know you can or want to have.
Much of the training a dog needs really should happen during normal, everyday life. If you get sucked into “training session” mentality, the dogs sense the difference and may “comply” when they see it as time to work, but all bets are off when the session is over.
So how do you incorporate training your dog into your daily life?
I had a student recently have a big “ah-ha” moment with this and boy do I wish I had a video camera rolling when she said what she said.
This student dove fully into the “Fanny Pack Lifestyle” as I like to call it. Each morning she fills her fanny pack full of her dogs’ food and treats.
When they do something she loves, she rewards them for it. Her dogs were terrible barkers, but she found (through us working together) that as she rewarded them after calling them away from the windows, not only did they start coming to her faster, but the barking, as a whole, was minimized.
The dogs found more value in chilling near her relaxed than they did flying off the handle every time someone walked by the house.
She didn’t have to take special time or make special sessions to work on her dogs’ barking, she just changed her response to the barking.
Instead of yelling at them, getting frustrated, and ultimately adding more high energy to the situation, she reduced her stress with the art of redirection.
Can you see how easy it can be to train your dog without setting aside special time?
The fanny pack is truly a game changer. Make that part of your daily routine and watch how quickly your dog’s behavior changes!
