Sometimes a person takes ownership of an eight week old pup and begins training and socialization immediately. This is correct and should be continued throughout the life of the dog.
There are other instances where the owner does very little with the pup during the 8-16 week period and then wonders why the pup is taking so long to train later on. This whole theory of not starting training on a pup until they are six months old is not valid, in my opinion. I mean, the pup is there, in your house, waiting to learn what his duties are and how to interact with the family, and you just leave him there to figure it out for himself. I’m not just talking about housebreaking here. I mean, the pup needs to be imprinted during this time for an optimum life as an adult.
Imprinting means the learning and socialization that the pup absorbs during the critical 8-16 week period. If you want your pup to chase a ball, you should probably start making it fun at eight weeks or otherwise at two years it’s not going to do it. Period. Please don’t blame the breeder for this, people. It’s handler caused and totally environmental. I’m not saying every pup can be titled in competitive obedience or Schutzhund – what I’m saying here is that you must bring out the as much of the pup’s working potential early in life for that potential to become active throughout life. It’s very important to know that a working attitude must be established for the pup to do work. This also holds true for the handler – if the handler does not have a working attitude, please don’t expect the dog to enjoy working.
As an example, recently I took a six week old pup with excellent nerves, food drive and overall great temperament and began imprint training. The downside of the pup was that there was very little prey drive and lots of independent activity, which included ignoring the handler unless food was involved. I knew this was going to be a disaster later on, especially with an inexperienced handler taking him. A strong willed dog with no idea of obedience or play is not a good thing, especially at adulthood.
I began by introducing toys, which were ignored, as expected. I then, patiently, brought out another pup with high prey drive along with this pup and introduced a toy to both at once. As soon as the high prey pup went after the toy, the other pup began to follow suit, would wrestle to toy away, then would get bored and go about his business. I did this about fifty times until, one day, this pup grabbed the toy and ran with it. Success! From that point forward, exciting prey drive has been a gradual, improving situation to the point where the pup will chase after a ball on a string while on leash and grip a rag as well. In this instance, I had to bring out, through patiently imprinting, the prey drive that the pup had. This same pup will do a sit, sit/stay, recall and has begun basic tracking and heeling (all done with food and some ball release). He is now very connected to humans and although he will always be a strong willed dog, he will also continue to be extremely trainable and valuable to whoever eventually adopts him. This pup can now walk onto any training field or into any household and do work. I know this because I helped put it there.
The moral of the story is: IMMEDIATELY BEGIN IMPRINTING, SOCIALIZING AND TRAINING YOUR PUP. Write down a list of all the things you want your pup to be able to do, in order of importance. Then, begin work on each, one at a time, until the pup is doing well with that thing. Then go on to the next one, remembering that you will need to go back and continue work on all of these things, every day, every week, until they are simply part of the dog.
Then you will be a real handler and your dog will live up to its expectations as a true working dog.
Best,
Bob
Post a Comment