Puppy In Command? Start early!
The puppy version of the place command involves food training and going over the basics of coming to place, down on the cot and releasing from place. We want to keep these sessions very brief, 5-10 minutes tops! But we can do them frequently over the day. We can’t expect much in the way of duration on place with puppies because their attention spans are sooooo teeny tiny at this age, but what we can do is extend out the food reward a bit so that we can get puppy holding down on place for a few seconds before releasing him. In this video, Brady and I are going over his puppy place command on leash and I’m using the leash to guide him on and off the cot and food to reward him for his great work and focus! This is exactly the value in food training with young puppies, we can leverage food to cultivate a puppy that seeks out engagement with his handler, build his work ethic and his love of training along with growing his tiny attention span as we give him a basic puppy introduction to the obedience commands in preparation for his return for adult remote collar training later on!
Next is the ‘down’ Command- by starting with a food lure and downward leash guidance and then progressing to incorporating it into his puppy place command as a verbal cue! There isn’t much duration or holding of commands with puppies until they come back later on for their adult remote collar program, but food work, shaping and some leash guidance are fantastic ways to introduce puppies to their basic obedience commands while also having a lot of fun and building the most important skills like handler focus and impulse control! In this video, Brady and I are working on the down portion and you’ll notice that Brady is doing a great job building focus on me and the exercise as we work. The secret here is not to overwork a puppy but keep sessions super short (5 minutes or so!) and frequent throughout the day and always leave puppy wanting more!
Puppies can also learn how to walk politely in leash, along with the puppy version of the ‘auto sit’, using leash guidance and food! We don’t expect puppies to hold commands for long durations because they don’t have the attention span for that yet, but we do want to teach them to perform the basic puppy version of the commands during our short but frequent training sessions and walks. As I’m walking with Brady in this video, I’m keeping him engaged with me by steering with the leash, using directional changes when he gets tuned out or surges forward, auto sits whenever I stop walking and by rewarding him with food for preforming his commands and for staying tuned in with me. With puppies we have a wonderful opportunity to cultivate calm behaviour and handler focus right away by leveraging food training! Well done sweet boy!